The suspect has been ordered into pre-trial detention on counts of murder, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm
Authorities have identified the suspect in the Magdeburg Christmas market attack as a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had received permanent residency.
Police have not publicly named the suspect, who was named in German media as Taleb A. However, the BBC identified him from a BBC documentary he had been interviewed for in 2019, as a doctor from Saudi Arabia who was interviewed by the broadcaster in 2019 as part of several media interviews reporting on his activist work helping Saudi Arabians who had turned their back on Islam to flee to Europe.
In the documentary, the man speaks about founding the platform wearesaudis.net after he became an atheist and claimed asylum in Germany. He arrived in the country in 2006 and in 2016 was recognised as a refugee.
He is a fierce critic of Islam in the documentary and other interviews he took part in that year, telling Germany’s FAZ newspaper: “There is no good Islam.”
His account on social media platform X, verified by the news agency Reuters, indicated support for the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The suspect had worked as a psychiatrist at a specialist rehabilitation clinic for criminals with addictions in Bernburg since March 2020. “Since the end of October 2024, he has been absent due to holiday and illness,” the facility said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia issued three warnings to German security authorities about the suspect, a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy who sympathised with the far-right Alternative for Germany party, officials said. It is unclear what the warnings contained.
The suspect lived on a quiet street near the centre of Bernburg, a town of 30,000, south of Magdeburg, in a three-storey apartment block.
German authorities said early on the suspect was not known to authorities as an Islamist. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser declined to comment on the suspect’s motives for the attack or political affiliations but said his Islamophobia was “clear to see”.
The local prosecutor in Magdeburg, Horst Nopens, said a possible factor in the attack may have been the suspect’s “dissatisfaction with the treatment of Saudi refugees in Germany” but added that the motive remained unclear.
Describing himself as a former Muslim turned atheist, Taleb A. appears to have been an active user of the social media platform X, sharing dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticising the religion and congratulating Muslims who had left the faith.
He also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe”.
Taleb A. reportedly worked with a website that helped ex-Muslims, mainly women, fleeing persecution in their Gulf homelands, such as Saudia Arabia.
He told the BBC in 2019 he spent up to 16 hours a day on the platform and that 90 per cent of the people he helped were women aged between 18 and 30.
The German newspaper Der Spiegel says a complaint was filed with German authorities against the suspect in December 2023. It came after he allegedly posted on X that Germany would pay “a price” for the alleged persecution of Saudi Arabian refugees. The case ended up with the State Criminal Police Office of Saxony-Anhalt, according to the newspaper.
After evaluating the statements, the officials are said to have concluded that the suspect’s statements did not pose a concrete threat.
The suspect has been ordered into pre-trial detention on counts of murder, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm.
The president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz were among those to attend a memorial service for the victims at Magdeburg Cathedral on Saturday, which city officials estimate was attended by around a thousand people, including firefighters and first responders, and the families of the people killed and injured.
Crowds also gathered outside the cathedral to lay flowers, teddy bears, and stand in candlelit vigil for the service which was also aired on large screens outside the building.
Additional reporting by agencies