A woman has died in hospital two weeks after she was injured in the Christmas market attack in Germany, bringing the total of people killed to six.
The 52-year-old died of the serious injuries she sustained when Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, rammed his SUV into a packed market in the town of Magdeburg on December 20, killing four other women aged 45 to 75 and André Gleißner, 9.
At least 299 people were injured, according to the interior ministry of the Saxony-Anhalt, with federal commissioner Roland Weber adding there were as many as 531 victims, including those who were traumatised after witnessing the horrifying attack.
The woman reportedly died a few days ago and a friend told German tabloid Bild that she had been recovering well until there were complications following a surgery.
Authorities said the attacker used emergency exit points to drive onto the grounds of the Christmas market, where he picked up speed and ploughed into the crowds, hitting more than 200 people in a three-minute attack.
This climbing death toll comes after Germany’s interior minister said on December 30 that it was still too soon to jump to any conclusions about Abdulmohsen.
Authorities are looking into whether there were security lapses in the build-up to the December 20 attack, which has cast a renewed spotlight on security and immigration ahead of a snap election in Germany.
Abdulmohsen is a Saudi doctor who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had received permanent residency.
Police arrested a 50-year-old Saudi doctor identified as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen after he rammed his SUV into a packed market in the town of Magdeburg
The 52-year-old woman died due to her serious injuries sustained when Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, rammed his SUV into a packed market in the town of Magdeburg on December 20, killing four other women aged 45 to 75 and André Gleißner, 9
Al-Abdulmohsen drove his SUV into the packed Christmas market in Magdeburg on December 20
Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, rammed his SUV into a packed market in the town of Magdeburg on Friday night, killing four women aged 45 to 75 and nine-year-old André Gleißner (pictured)
Al-Abdulmohsen was pictured in a white t-shirt as he arrived at court in the evening of December 21, where he was remanded on charges of murder, attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm
Social media accounts falsely alleged al-Abdulmohsen was an Islamist terrorist shortly after the attack, but the German interior minister later identified the suspect as being Islamophobic himself.
‘The perpetrator does not fit into any previous categorisation,’ Faeser said after a four-hour session of a ministerial committee focused on the attack just before Christmas
She promised a full investigation. ‘Every stone will be turned over here.’
A harsh critic of Germany’s past welcome too many Muslim migrants, Abdulmohsen wrote on the platform X that he wished ex-chancellor Angela Merkel could be jailed for life or executed.
In 2015, Merkel implemented an ‘open door’ policy, which allow over a million asylum seekers to cross the border into Germany.
The exiled Saudi attacker had praised hard-Right politicians for combating the ‘Islamisation’ of Europe and pledged to take ‘revenge’ over harassment of female refugees.
Al-Abdulmohsen had voiced support for Elon Musk, Tommy Robinson and Alternative for Germany, the hard-right anti-immigration party, trying to build connections to hard-right organisations in Germany and the UK.
Musk reposted a tweet by Nigel Farage which blamed the Christmas market attack on border policies.
And as the surging AfD party seeks to rally support in the run-up to Germany’s snap federal election, the chair pointedly asked ‘When will this madness end?’
Tempers are strained after it was revealed police were warned about the ‘unstable’ suspect in September last year, but did nothing more than take screenshots of his twisted online threats.
Local outlet Die Welt reported that German state and federal police had carried out a ‘risk assessment’ on al-Abdulmohsen last year but concluded that he posed ‘no specific danger’.
The Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, seen abandoned and empty on December 21
The Saudi suspect, psychiatrist and anti-Islam activist al-Abdulmohsen, had made online death threats against German citizens and had a history of quarrelling with state authorities
A woman holds a candle as others watch a prayer ceremony outside the Magdeburg Dom church, the day after the devastating attack
Firefighters patrol the scene of the crash on December 20 after a car rammed into a massive crowd of shoppers at a Christmas market in Magdeburg at around 7pm
Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche, a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024
Public workers clean the Christmas Market, where a car drove into a crowd on December 20
Tributes to the victims of the devastating attack are seen near the market on December 22
Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the ‘terrible, insane’ attack and made a call for national unity amid high political tensions as Germany heads towards February 23 elections.
But as German media dug into al-Abdulmohsen’s past, and investigators gave away little, criticism has rained down from the far-right and far-left parties already bitterly opposed to the Scholz government.
The Saudi suspect, psychiatrist and anti-Islam activist al-Abdulmohsen, had made online death threats against German citizens and had a history of quarrelling with state authorities.
News magazine Der Spiegel, citing security sources, said the Saudi secret service had warned Germany’s spy agency BND a year ago about a tweet in which al-Abdulmohsen threatened Germany would pay a ‘price’ for its treatment of Saudi refugees.
And in August al-Abdulmohsen wrote on social media: ‘Is there a path to justice in Germany without blowing up a German embassy or randomly slaughtering German citizens?… If anyone knows it, please let me know.’
In a post in December last year, he wrote: ‘Germany is the only country – other than Saudi Arabia – that chases female Saudi asylum seekers all over the world to destroy their lives.
‘Revenge will come soon. Even if it costs me my life. I will make the German nation pay the price of the crimes committed by its government against Saudi refugees.’