Victims
Five people died - one boy (9) and four women aged 45, 52, 67 and 75.
About two hundred people were injured, 40 of them seriously. Some are in critical condition, so it is feared that the final balance of victims could be higher, he writes Deutsche says.
Nedel
Suspects Taleb A. drove into the crowd in a black BMW that he had rented earlier on Friday around 19 p.m. He drove through the Christmas market in Magdeburg for about 400 hundred meters, running over people, before the car stopped and the attacker was arrested.
He is now in pre-trial detention, and the Federal Prosecutor's Office is still considering whether to take over the case, which it would do if it were a terrorist act. For now, the authorities cannot confirm that the motives of the crime were political.
He is charged with five counts of murder as well as attempted murder in 200 cases.
According to city leaders, A. used the rescue corridor, i.e. the space left for police vehicles, ambulances or firefighters. Otherwise, the Christmas fair was surrounded by obstacles, precisely because of such scenarios.
That's why there was a discussion in Germany about whether there were lapses in security. Read more about it here.
The perpetrator
Suspect Taleb A. has been in Germany since 2006. He came as a doctor. He has been enjoying political asylum since 2016 after he presented himself as someone persecuted by Saudi Arabia and allegedly threatened with death.
He was employed in Bemburg, a town not far from Magdeburg, in an institution that takes care of drug addicts who have committed a crime.
But Taleb A., judging by the posts on social networks, was more occupied with helping Saudi refugees reach Germany. He described himself as a former Muslim and criticized Islam.
Fixed ideas
On Network X, A. recently called for the death penalty for former Chancellor Angela Merkel for allegedly "Islamizing Europe." Many of his posts are Islamophobic.
He sympathized with many of the positions of the right-wing Alternative for Germany, which announced that he was not a member. He also liked the announcements of Elon Musk, the boss of the X platform and the main supporter of the new-old American president, Donald Trump.
In recent years, Taleb A. has tried or made contact with numerous organizations and journalists, all claiming that Germany is actively working against Saudi refugees.
In particular, he took the "Secular Aid to Refugees" organization from Cologne to task, claiming that he would unmask them. They also conducted a court case against Taleb A. for defamation.
"I will soon do something that will make this corrupt organization a world issue," wrote A. in a message to a German-Egyptian author who criticizes Islam. The message was sent in November, but the author allegedly did not see it until after the attack.
Talib A. was also in contact with DW. He announced in 2021 via Twitter. He made accusations that he was being spied on by Saudi Arabia and the Saudis in Germany. He told the German institutions not to take him seriously and take no action.
In a message to DW from October 2023, he wrote: "They refused to even launch an investigation! With the explanation that there is no public interest. (...) They let a Saudi refugee be exposed to intimidation, surveillance and persecution, and they won't even conduct a one-hour interrogation to even get a first impression."
Many of his claims could not be independently verified by DW. In November and December 2024, he offered to appear at DW and publicly present evidence. Then he cut off contact.
Read more about the perpetrator here.
Mail delivery and protests
A mass for the victims and their families was held in Magdeburg Cathedral on Saturday. About a thousand people gathered in front of the cathedral, laying flowers and lighting candles.
Mayor Simone Boris called for unity: "Let us grieve together, let us support the victims and the victims' families while they grieve, let us, please, stick together as a city."
Hundreds of people gathered in the nearby square, among them members of right-wing organizations and parties. They shouted anti-migrant slogans and accused the German authorities of having blood on their hands.
Politics
As assessed by many commentators, this issue is now likely to dominate the short election campaign before the early elections on February 23.
The perpetrator's worldview does not fit into the scheme expected by right-wing populists because he is not an Islamist terrorist, but on the contrary, an Islamophobe. Which, paradoxically, flew into the Christmas market as a symbol of Christian tradition.
Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Magdeburg. All other politicians also condemned the attack.
"It is unbearable that we gather with fear and worry and that we can no longer even celebrate carefree. We have to stop that," wrote Christian Democrat leader Friedrich Mertz, the favorite to become the next chancellor.
In Germany, a large part of the party scene has been calling for limiting the number of asylum seekers and faster deportation of those who do not have the right to stay in Germany.
A memory
The crime happened almost to the day of the eighth anniversary of the first similar attack, the one in Berlin's Breitscheidplatz.
Then an Islamist from Tunisia ran over people with a truck at a Christmas market. He killed thirteen. Since then, security measures have been taken against the intrusion of vehicles into people.
Since then, Germany has experienced a series of attacks by lone wolves, people who are not part of any terrorist organization, are often mentally unstable and use simple tools such as knives in their attacks.
The last two such fatal knife attacks took place in Mannheim Solingen.
