{"id":817592,"date":"2025-01-06T09:11:50","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T15:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/06\/saudi-arabia-warned-germany-a-year-ago-about-christmas-market-attack-suspects-extremist-views\/"},"modified":"2025-01-06T09:11:50","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T15:11:50","slug":"saudi-arabia-warned-germany-a-year-ago-about-christmas-market-attack-suspects-extremist-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/06\/saudi-arabia-warned-germany-a-year-ago-about-christmas-market-attack-suspects-extremist-views\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia warned Germany a year ago about Christmas Market attack suspect\u2019s extremist views"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BERLIN: The German government faced growing questions Sunday about whether more could have been done to prevent the Christmas market car-ramming attack that killed five people and injured over 200.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Saudi suspect, 50-year-old psychiatrist and anti-Islam activist Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, had made online death threats against German citizens and had a history of quarrelling with state authorities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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News magazine Der Spiegel, citing security sources, said the Saudi secret service had warned Germany\u2019s spy agency BND a year ago about a tweet in which Abdulmohsen threatened Germany would pay a \u201cprice\u201d for its treatment of Saudi refugees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And in August Abdulmohsen wrote on social media: \u201cIs there a path to justice in Germany without blowing up a German embassy or randomly slaughtering German citizens?… If anyone knows it, please let me know.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Die Welt daily reported, also citing security sources, that German state and federal police had carried out a \u201crisk assessment\u201d on Abdulmohsen last year but concluded that he posed \u201cno specific danger\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Chancellor Olaf Scholz has condemned the \u201cterrible, insane\u201d attack Friday in the city of Magdeburg and made a call for national unity amid high political tensions as Germany heads towards February 23 elections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said it was important \u201cthat we stick together, that we link arms, that it is not hatred that determines our coexistence but the fact that we are a community that seeks a common future\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But as German media dug into Abdulmohsen\u2019s past, and investigators gave away little, criticism rained down from the far-right and far-left parties already bitterly opposed to the Scholz government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The far-right AfD\u2019s parliamentary head Bernd Baumann demanded Scholz call a special session of the Bundestag on the \u201cdesolate\u201d security situation, arguing that \u201cthis is the least that we owe the victims\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And the head of the far-left BSW party, Sahra Wagenknecht, demanded that Interior Minister Nancy Faeser explain \u201cwhy so many tips and warnings were ignored beforehand\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2018Ultra-right conspiracy ideologies\u2019<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Emotions have run high, and Magdeburg has been in deep mourning over the mass carnage Friday evening that left a nine-year-old child among the dead and casualties being treated in 15 regional hospitals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Of the 205 injured, around 40 were in critical condition, with doctors fighting to save their lives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Surgeons have worked around the clock, with one health worker telling local media of \u201cblood on the floor everywhere, people screaming, lots of painkillers being administered\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Police and prosecutors cautioned they were at the beginning of their investigation into what motivated the attack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Abdulmohsen, who was arrested at the scene next to the heavily damaged car, referred to himself as \u201ca Saudi atheist\u201d in an unpublished interview with AFP from 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As an activist, he helped women flee Arab countries, and has in the past complained that German authorities were not doing enough to help them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At the same time, he has criticised the entry of other Muslim migrants and war refugees to Germany and backed conspiracy theories about the planned \u201cIslamisation\u201d of Europe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A harsh critic of Germany\u2019s past welcome to many Muslim migrants, he wrote on the platform X that he wished ex-chancellor Angela Merkel could be jailed for life or executed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In previous brushes with the law, he was first convicted and fined by a court in the city of Rostock in 2013 for \u201cdisturbing the public peace by threatening to commit crimes\u201d, according to Der Spiegel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This year he was investigated in Berlin for the \u201cmisuse of emergency calls\u201d after arguing with police at a station in Berlin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He had been on sick leave since late October from his workplace, a clinic near Magdeburg that treats offenders with substance addiction problems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The chairwoman of the group Central Council of Ex-Muslims, Mina Ahadi, said that the Saudi suspect \u201cis no stranger to us, because he has been terrorising us for years\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She labelled him \u201ca psychopath who adheres to ultra-right conspiracy ideologies\u201d and said he \u201cdoesn\u2019t just hate Muslims, but everyone who doesn\u2019t share his hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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