The suspect is a 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia who has lived in Germany for almost two decades.
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A man suspected of driving a car into a German Christmas market in an attack that killed at least five people and injured scores more will be charged with murder and attempted murder, police said Sunday after the man was taken into custody.
Police in downtown Magdeburg, where the attack occurred on Friday, also reported scuffles at a right-wing extremist demonstration attended by about 2,100 people on Saturday evening, while other residents attended somber memorial events.
The suspect is a 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia who has lived in Germany for almost two decades.
A judge ordered the man, identified in German media as Taleb A., to be remanded in custody after prosecutors filed charges of five counts of murder, multiple counts of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm, a police statement said.
Police reported scuffles at a protest rally attended by around 2,100 people on Saturday evening, a day after the attack. Right-wingers had described the gathering on the messaging app Telegram as a “demonstration against terror”.
Demonstrators were seen wearing black balaclavas and holding a large banner that read “Remigration,” a term popular with far-right supporters who seek the mass deportation of migrants and people not considered ethnically German .
German authorities received a warning about the suspected perpetrator in a car attack at a Christmas market last year, a government body said on Sunday, as more details emerged about the five people killed in the attack.
“This tip was taken seriously, like any other of the numerous tips,” said the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees on Sunday on X about the tip, which it said it had received in late summer last year.
However, the office also pointed out that it was not an investigative agency and that it had forwarded the information to the relevant authorities in accordance with the procedure in such cases. No further details were given about the suspect or the nature of the warnings.
Police in Magdeburg, the city center where the attack took place on Friday evening, said on Sunday that the deceased were four women aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, as well as a 9-year-old boy which they had spoken for a day earlier.
According to authorities, 200 people were injured, 41 of whom were in serious condition. They were treated in several hospitals in Magdeburg, about 130 kilometers west of Berlin and beyond.
The motive for the attack on Friday evening remains unclear. The investigators are investigating, among other things, the suspect's criticism of the German authorities' handling of Saudi refugees. He was also a staunch critic of Islam and had expressed his support for the right-wing extremist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) on the social media platform X.
With input from agencies.
