German police face claims they missed opportunities to detain the suspect behind Friday’s Christmas market attack in Magdeburg.
In September, an Instagram user contacted Magdeburg police warning of a man on the social media platform X who had said “he’s going to kill random German citizens, please do something and arrest him as soon as possible. Please answer, it’s very urgent.”
The message contained screenshots of posts made by the eventual suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia, and police sought him out at his workplace, a detox clinic near Magdeburg.
A committee of the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt heard on Monday that complaints had been filed against the man, but the precise reasons for the police interest were revealed only in a closed session.
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According to German media reports, police officers were unable to locate him at his workplace, a hospital near Magdeburg, and did not follow up.
Germany’s central migration body confirmed on Monday that it, too, was contacted by the same person about al-Abdulmohsen but passed the message on to police “as we are not an investigative authority”.
In total, police in Saxony-Anhalt made three attempts to contact al-Abdulmohsen in the past 14 months according to state interior minister Tamara Zieschang. As they were unable to contact him, in person or by letter, the investigation was dropped.
On the day of the attack, which killed five and left 235 people injured, al-Abdulmohsen left various rambling and threatening messages online.
[ Flowers, candles and a deathly silence at Magdeburg Christmas marketOpens in new window ]
Unnamed Saudi sources have told the AFP news agency that Saudi Arabia had sought his extradition — and sent German security services at least three warnings about him.
Without explaining the reasons for the request, the source told AFP that Riyadh had warned the man “could be dangerous”.
German’s criminal police have described him as an atypical attacker: an Islamophobic, anti-Islamist former Muslim who came to Germany on a trainee doctor visa, secured residency after claiming asylum and was a fan of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
In 2014 the Saudi-born doctor was found guilty and fined for disturbing the peace in the northeastern city of Rostock after a dispute with a local medical authority.
A dispute had arisen between al-Abdulmohsen and a medical specialist examination board in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern over additional proof of his training to be admitted for a psychiatry examination. The court heard that al-Abdulmohsen called the board’s office and threatened an employee.
Unless his application was approved within 10 days, he said, “something serious, with international significance” could happen.
He asked the woman if she had seen images from the Boston marathon attack the previous day and suggested that “something like that could happen here too”.
In court, the doctor said he had been under “huge psychological pressure” because he had no income, had debts and had recently received an email from his homeland threatening to “slaughter” him if he returned.
The attack has meant German political parties clashing on migration and security issues, in advance of an early federal election in February.
Germany’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union, hoping to take back power in Berlin, has called for greater powers for intelligence services to avoid information silos.
“We can no longer be satisfied with the fact that information about violent criminals and terrorists often only comes from foreign services,” said Günter Krings, a leading CDU politician.
At a rally in Magdeburg on Monday evening Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel attracted controversy for including in her speech a Holocaust-related slogan: “Never again is now.”
Meanwhile, police in the northern port city of Bremerhaven said they arrested a man on Sunday night after he threatened to attack a Christmas market there in a TikTok video.
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