German safety, intel chiefs to be quizzed over Dec 20 Christmas market assault

German safety and intelligence chiefs are due on Monday to face questioning concerning the car-ramming assault that killed 5 individuals and wounded greater than 200 at a Christmas market 10 days in the past.

They are going to be quizzed about attainable missed clues and safety failures earlier than the December 20 assault within the jap metropolis of Magdeburg, the place police arrested the 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist Taleb al-Abdulmohsen on the scene.

Inside Minister Nancy Faeser, Saxony-Anhalt state officers, and the heads of Germany’s home and overseas intelligence companies are anticipated to face a closed-door committee listening to in parliament from 1200 GMT.

Abdulmohsen is the one suspect within the assault through which a rented BMW sport utility automobile ploughed by way of the group of revellers at excessive pace, leaving a path of bloody carnage.

Investigators have but to declare a suspected motive within the assault that used a motorized vehicle as a weapon, which recalled previous jihadist assaults, together with in Berlin and within the French metropolis of Good in 2016.

Abdulmohsen, in contrast, has voiced strongly anti-Islam views, sympathies with the far proper, and anger at Germany for permitting in too many Muslim conflict refugees and different asylum-seekers.

Based on unconfirmed media reviews citing unnamed German safety sources, he has prior to now been handled for psychological sickness and examined constructive for drug use on the evening of his arrest.

The Saudi suspect has been remanded in custody in a top-security facility on 5 counts of homicide and 205 counts of tried homicide, prosecutors stated, however not up to now on terrorism-related costs.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who faces elections in February, has declared that Germany must “examine whether or not this horrible act may have been prevented”.

“No stone have to be left unturned,” he instructed information portal t-online on Friday, echoing comparable feedback by Faeser.

REPEATED CLUES

Scholz stated that “over time, there have been repeated clues” concerning the suspect, including that “we should look at very rigorously whether or not there have been any failings on the a part of the authorities in Saxony-Anhalt or on the nationwide stage”.

German media digging by way of Abdulmohsen’s previous and his numerous social media postings have discovered expressions of anger and frustration, and threats of violence towards German residents and politicians.

Saudi Arabia stated it had repeatedly warned Germany about Abdulmohsen, who got here to Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee standing 10 years later.

A supply near the Saudi authorities instructed AFP that the dominion had prior to now sought his extradition.
Germany has not formally commented on this declare, however would often deny requests to ship individuals granted asylum again to the nation they fled.

Abdulmohsen had a historical past of brushes with the legislation and court docket appearances in Germany, media have reported, together with for threats of violence.

German police have stated they’d contacted Abdulmohsen in September 2023 and October 2024, after which repeatedly tried however failed to satisfy him once more in December.

Police maintain such conferences with individuals deemed a possible risk to clarify they’re below shut watch and to discourage misconduct.

Forward of the German elections, the Christmas market bloodshed has reignited fierce debate about immigration and safety, after a number of lethal knife assaults this 12 months blamed on Islamist extremists.

The pinnacle of the conservative opposition, Friedrich Merz, wrote that, whether or not the attacker was a jihadist or an anti-Islam activist, “conflicts are being fought out on German soil… We have now to cease this!”