A nine-year-old child and four adults died in Magdeburg after a car hit people in the Christmas market.
In excess of 200 were wounded – forty-one of them seriously – in the onslaught late Friday night.
An armed man drove a black BMW SUV for about three minutes through the crowded market, ramming through the stalls for approximately 400 metres.
The suspect has been identified in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year old Saudi Arabian national who has been living in Germany since 2006 and the man is said to have been a doctor.
Horst Walter Nopens, the prosecutor of Bremen on Saturday mentioned that the probe was continuing, but the motive behind the crime could have been resentment with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are characterized in Germany.
The man who opened fire may have no links to Islamist extremism. In his social media and the posts, he gives an impression or he had been an Islamophobe.
A source familiar with the official Saudi position informed the BBC that Riyadh tried to convey its concerns over al-Abdulmohsen to Germany’s representatives four times via notes verbal – diplomatic letters pointing to an official violation of international rules.
The source who preferred not to be named said these notifications were ignored.
But another 20-year counter-terrorism veteran said the Saudis could be setting up a disinformation campaign against a man who attempted to assist Saudi women, mostly bride ts, seeking asylum in Germany.
Al-Abdulmohsen is currently being interrogated and prosecutors are likely to press for a murder and attempted murder charges against him in the near future, according to the head of the local prosecutor’s office, Saturday.
The state’s premier Reiner Haseloff said in the initial speculation that the alleged attacker had been reported to have agreed alone.
City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel, rushed to the scene shortly after 19:00 local time on Friday.
Al-Abdulmohsen is believed to have encroached the market through a section that was dedicated for access by he heroic ambulances, the police said.
The suspect was a psychiatrist, who was a resident of Bernburg, about forty kilometers from Magdeburg.
Born in Saudi Arabia, al-Abdulmohsen came to Germany in 2006; in 2016 he was granted the status of a refugee.
He operated an online service which wanted to assist other ex-Muslims escape oppression in their GCC countries of origin.
On Saturday evening a memorial service had been organized for the victims of the attack at Magdeburg Cathedral.
It was also participated in by families of the victims, emergency responders and government representatives including the German chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Speaking at the market earlier on Saturday, Scholz called the attack a ‘terrible disaster’, pointing out that ‘so many people were injured and killed with such cruelty’ in the ‘happy’ place.
He informed journalists that there were question marks for the most severe cases and said that they “will use all resources available” for the identification of the perpetrator.
The victims said they had to jump out of the car the attacker was using, or run away, or simply try to disappear on Friday.
News Update Today Speaking to the German paper Bild, Nadine recalled that, accompanied by her boyfriend Marco, she was at the Christmas market when the car raced toward the crowd.
Taken and pulled away from the side, the 32-year-old told the paper. “It was terrible.”
At the same time, Lars Frohmüller, a reporter for the German public broadcaster MDR said that he witnessed blood spread on the floor of a hospital and many doctors tending to the patients, trying to warm them up because of their injuries.
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