German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on Saturday condemned the “terrible, insane” car-ramming attack on a crowded Christmas market that killed five people and injured more than 200.
Police arrested a 50-year-old Saudi psychiatry doctor at the scene Friday, next to the battered SUV that had ploughed through the festive crowd leaving a trail of carnage and bloodied casualties.
A sombre Scholz, dressed in black, visited the attack site Saturday with national and regional politicians in the eastern city of Magdeburg, where they laid flowers outside the main church.
Scholz said at least 40 of the injured were in a condition that people should be “worried” about them but gave no details.
He pledged that Germany would respond “with the full force of the law” to the attack. But he also called for unity in the country that has been plunged into a heated debate on immigration and security ahead of elections in February.
The centre-left chancellor said it was important “that we stick together, that we link arms, that it is not hatred that determines our coexistence but the fact that we are a community that seeks a common future.”
He labelled the attack “terrible, insane” but said he was grateful for expressions of “solidarity” from many countries around the world.
“It is good to hear that we as Germans are not alone in the face of this terrible catastrophe.”
– ‘Islamophobic’ views –
As Germany reeled in shock from an attack that came eight years after a jihadist strike on a Berlin Christmas market claimed 13 lives, more details emerged about the Saudi man under arrest.
Taleb Jawad Al Abdulmohsen had lived in Germany since 2006 and held a permanent residence permit, working in a clinic near Magdeburg.
He had also worked as a rights activist who supported Saudi women and described himself as a “Saudi atheist”. He had voiced strongly anti-Islam views, echoing the rhetoric of the far-right in social media posts and interviews.
As his views expressed online grew more radical, he accused Germany’s government of a plan to “Islamise Europe” and voiced fears he was being targeted by authorities.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that while she would not speculate about the motive, “the one thing” she could confirm was that the suspect had expressed an “Islamophobic” stance.
The Bild daily said an initial drug test had proved positive when police used a test kit that can detect narcotics including cannabis, cocaine and methamphetamines. This was not immediately confirmed by authorities.
– Sorrow and anger –
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Surveillance video of the attack showed a black BMW driving at high speed through the dense crowd, running over and scattering bodies amid the festive stalls that were selling snacks, handicrafts and traditional mulled wine.
Police said the vehicle drove “at least 400 metres across the Christmas market”.
The sorrow and anger sparked by the carnage, in which a young child was among those killed, seemed set to inflame a heated debate on immigration.
The leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, which has focused on jihadist attacks in its campaign against immigrants, wrote on X: “When will this madness stop?”
“What happened today affects a lot of people. It affects us a lot,” Fael Kelion, a 27-year-old Cameroonian living in the city, told AFP.
“I think that since (the suspect) is a foreigner, the population will be unhappy, less welcoming,” he said.
Michael Raarig, a 67-year-old engineer, said: “I am sad, I am shocked. I never would have believed this could happen, here in an east German provincial town.”
He believed that the attack “will play into the hands of the AfD” which has had its strongest support in the formerly communist eastern Germany.
– Candles and flowers –
Mourning residents left candles, flowers, cards and children’s toys at the Johanneskirche church, where a memorial service was planned at 7:00 pm (1800 GMT).
German footballers were to hold a minute’s silence and wear black armbands in top championship matches this weekend in tribute to the victims.
Faeser had recently called for vigilance at Christmas markets, although she said that authorities had not received any specific threats.
Domestic security service the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had warned it considers Christmas markets an “ideologically suitable target for Islamist-motivated people”.
Security was stepped up Saturday at other Christmas markets with more police seen in Hamburg, Leipzig and other cities.
