Frank Gardner: Saudi warnings about market attack suspect were ignored
I’m told Saudi authorities are currently working to collect whatever they have about Magdeburg market suspect Taleb al-Abdulmohsen and share it “in every possible way” with Germany’s ongoing investigation. Have been.
There is perhaps a justified sense of estrangement inside the imposing sand-coloured and fortress-like walls of the Saudi Foreign Ministry in Riyadh.
The ministry had previously warned the German government about al-Abdulmohsen’s extremist views.
It sent four so-called “notes verbales”, three of which were sent to Germany’s intelligence agencies and one to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin. Saudis say there was no reaction.
Part of the explanation for this may lie in the fact that Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen Was granted asylum by Germany in 2016, a year after Former Chancellor Angela Merkel opened her country’s borders To admit more than one million immigrants from the Middle East, and 10 years after al-Abdulmohsen took up residence in Germany.
Coming from a country where Islam is the only religion allowed to be practiced publicly, al-Abdulmohsen was a very unusual citizen.
He had turned his back on Islam and made himself a heretic in the eyes of many people.
Born in the Saudi date palm oasis city of Hofuf in 1974, little is known about his early life before he decided to leave Saudi Arabia at the age of 32 and move to Europe.
Active on social media, on his Twitter (later X) account he labels himself as a psychiatrist and founder of the Saudi rights movement with the tag @SaudiExMuslims.
She set up a website aimed at helping Saudi women flee their country to Europe.
The Saudis say he was a people smuggler and Mbatheth, the interior ministry’s investigators, are said to have a detailed file on him.
In recent years there have been reports of dissident Saudis in Canada, the United States and Germany coming under hostile surveillance by Saudi government agents.
There is no doubt that German authorities, both federal and state, made some serious mistakes in the case of al-Abdulmohsen.
Whatever his reasons for not responding to repeated warnings about his extremism, as the Saudis claim, he was clearly a threat to his adopted host country.
Separately, there is also the failure to close or at least secure the emergency access road to the Magdeburg Alter Markt, which allegedly allowed him to drive his BMW into the crowd.
German authorities have Market layout defended And said that investigation into the suspect’s past is ongoing.
But a complicating factor here is that Saudi Arabia, although considered a friend and ally of the West, has a poor human rights record.
As of June 2018 Saudi women were prohibited from driving And even women who had previously publicly demanded the lifting of that ban were persecuted and jailed.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is still only 30, is extremely popular in his country.
While Western leaders largely distanced themselves from him after his alleged involvement in this horrific incident Murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018Which the Crown Prince denies, his star at home is still high.
Under his de facto rule, Saudi public life has changed for the better, with men and women allowed to associate freely, and large, spectacular sporting and entertainment events, as well as cinemas, reopened. There have even been performances by Western artists such as David Guetta. Black Eyed Peas.
But there is a contradiction here.
While Saudi public life is thriving, there is also a crackdown on anything that even hints at greater political or religious freedom.
A rigorous prison sentence of 10 years or more is given for simple tweets.
No one is allowed to question the way the country is run.
Against this backdrop, it appears that Germany have left the ball to Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen.
