The suspect behind the deadly incident at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, a Saudi national identified as Taleb A., had prior run-ins with law enforcement, multiple media outlets reported on Saturday. His home country’s requests for extradition, however, had been met with silence.
Saudi Arabia warned the German authorities about the man about a year ago, dpa reported. The nature of the warning, however, was not immediately known. Riyadh had also requested extradition of the 50-year-old doctor, but received no response from Berlin, the kingdom’s security sources told the news agency.
German security sources stated that Saudi Arabia had warned the country’s authorities several times regarding the extremist views the suspect had openly expressed on Twitter, Reuters reports. Taleb A. is said to have been a radical anti-Islamist, who had publicly renounced his religion.
The suspect has been residing in Germany since 2006, yet obtained protected status only in 2016. Prior to that, he had a run-in with German law in 2013, when he was convicted of “disturbance of public peace by threatening crimes,” Spiegel reported.
The man ended up being fined about €900 and was permitted to stay in Germany, particularly due to fears that he would be “immediately executed” if he was sent back to his country of origin, the report suggested. The conviction apparently did not affect his asylum request.
The suspect allegedly rammed into a crowd at Magdeburg’s Christmas market on Friday evening, killing at least five people, including a child, and injuring some 200 others, including 41 who are now in serious or critical condition.
Thus far, the motive behind the attack remains unclear, authorities said on Saturday. Magdeburg Prosecutor Horst Nopens, however, suggested the attack could have been prompted by the suspect’s dissatisfaction with Berlin’s ways of handling Saudi refugees. The attacker is now facing five counts of murder, as well as over 200 counts of attempted murder, the prosecution said.
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