A sixth person died following the attack perpetrated at the end of December on the Christmas market in Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt), German justice indicated this Monday, January 6. A 52-year-old woman died in hospital, two weeks after a car rammed into a crowd on December 20 in this town in the center of the country, the prosecution announced.
Justice is still trying to clarify the motivations of the author, a 50-year-old Saudi doctor, while ongoing investigations “do not yet give a clear picture” of its intentions, indicated Interior Minister Nancy Faeser at the end of December. The man had injured 299 people, according to the authorities’ latest report, before being arrested the same evening by the police.
Very active on social networks, Taleb A. had also increased the number of worrying signals before the attack. He “does not fit into any known prior pattern” authorities, according to Nancy Faeser. Arriving in the country in 2006, he benefited from an unlimited residence permit. He was known for his radically hostile views towards Islam, after breaking with his religion. This specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy believed he was persecuted by the German state and was favorable to far-right conspiracy stories about a “Islamization” of Europe.
According to the court, the man could have acted to denounce the lack of support from the German authorities responsible for asylum to Saudi refugees. This deadly attack placed immigration and security at the heart of the campaign for the early legislative elections on February 23, with the opposition denouncing the lack of firmness of Olaf Scholz’s center-left coalition.
Source: www.liberation.fr
