Germans mourn Christmas market attack that kills five, injures 200 crime news
A memorial service was held in the cathedral of Magdeburg, a city shaken by the deadly incident.
Germans have gathered in Magdeburg to mourn the victims of a car attack in the eastern city that killed at least five people and injured 200.
A doctor drove into a busy outdoor Christmas market on Friday evening, killing four adults and a nine-year-old child and leaving 41 people so badly injured that the death toll could rise, authorities said.
Church bells rang across the city at 7:04 pm (18:04 GMT) on Saturday evening, the exact time of the attack.
A memorial service was held in the city’s cathedral, aimed primarily at relatives of the victims, as well as emergency responders and invited guests, including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Those who were not allowed to attend the service gathered outside the church to watch it on a big screen.
Several hundred people also gathered in the city’s central square, some laying flowers and lighting candles.
The crowd also included people carrying banners with far-right slogans.
The violence has shocked the German city of about 240,000 people, 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin.
This led many other places in Germany to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and in solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss.
Berlin kept many of its markets open but increased police presence at them.
The motive remains under investigation
The suspect is a 50-year-old immigrant from Saudi Arabia who described himself as an Islam-critical activist and surrendered to police at the scene.
Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said at a news conference that the suspect is being investigated on five counts of suspected murder and 205 counts of suspected attempted murder.
Noppens said investigators were looking into whether the attack may have been motivated by the doctor’s dissatisfaction with Germany’s treatment of Saudi refugees.
Police have not publicly released the name of the suspect, but several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A. and reported that he was an expert in psychiatry and psychotherapy.
Posts on the suspect’s
A Saudi source told the agency that Saudi Arabia had warned German authorities about the suspect because he had posted “extremist” views on his X account that threatened peace and security.
A risk assessment conducted last year by German state and federal criminal investigators concluded that the man posed “no particular threat”, the Welt newspaper reported, citing security sources.
Germany has suffered a series of attacks in recent years, including a knife attack during a festival in the western city of Solingen in August that left three people dead and eight injured.
Friday’s attack also came eight years after a man drove a truck into a crowded Berlin Christmas market, killing 13 people and injuring scores more. A few days later, the attacker was killed in a shootout in Italy.
