When news first broke of Friday evening’s horrific attack on a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, many assumed it was the work of an Islamist terrorist.
For those looking to believe such a theory, further proof appeared to come when authorities revealed that the man suspected of driving a rented BMW 4×4 into a crowd of shoppers had been born in Saudi Arabia.
Yet the suspect, identified by German media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, has instead been swiftly revealed as a bundle of contradictions that have baffled terrorism experts. Police, who arrested him almost immediately after the attack, said he tested positive for drugs, but did not give more details.
A still from a video captures the start of the car’s trajectory into a mass of people attending a Christmas market
Abdulmohsen is a psychiatrist who has worked for several years with