Taleb A., the alleged perpetrator of last night’s attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market where at least 5 people lost their lives and over 200 were injured, 41 of whom are seriously hospitalized, was under the influence of drugs.

According to BILD newspaper, the preliminary test was positivebut details will be known only after thorough examination by experts.

The 50-year-old Saudi is a psychiatrist and worked at a clinic in Bernburg, about 50 kilometers south of Magdeburg. Lately, however, Der Spiegel reports, he has been absent from work very often, citing illness.

The magazine also reports that Saudi Arabia had informed the German services three times about Taleb A. Specifically, a source from Saudi Arabia speaking to Reuters revealed that the country had warned German authorities about the attacker after he posted extremist views on his personal X account that threatened peace and security.

Der Spiegel reported that the suspect sympathized with the AfD, however, the magazine did not say where it got the information.

Soltz visits the scene of the attack

The open-air Christmas market of Magdeburg, where the murderous attack took place yesterday, was visited by the Prime Minister of Germany, Olaf Scholz. Soltz was accompanied by Secretary of the Interior Nancy Feiser. Together with the leader of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Rainer Hasselof, all of them dressed in black, they walked in silence to the Christmas market along the street where the attacker plowed his car through the crowds on Friday night.

Soltz

“What a terrible act to injure and kill so many people with such brutality. Almost 40 people are so seriously injured that we have to be very worried about them,” said Olaf Solz and called on the people to stand together against hatred.

Dozens of citizens have been rushing to the scene since the morning in order to leave a flower at the scene of the attack.

Germany

Germany

Who is the perpetrator – They are looking for the motive

The attacker’s motive remains unclear, but authorities, according to Der Spiegel magazine, appear to have ruled out Islamist terrorism.

The 50-year-old perpetrator, a psychiatrist by profession, was born in Hufuf, Saudi Arabia in 1974 and in 2006 he arrived in Germany seeking asylum, as he had renounced Islam and feared for his life. He has enjoyed political refugee status since 2016 and until today worked at a psychiatric clinic in Bernburg, a city of 32,000 about 50 kilometers south of Magdeburg, in Saxony-Anhalt.

Taleb A. he was well-known in the self-exiled Saudi community and even acted as a “point of contact” for his countrymen seeking asylum in Germany, especially women.

Indicatively, in an interview he gave in 2019 to the Frankfurter Rundschau, he stated that women from his homeland turn to him for protection, mainly because “they were raped by their husband-guardian” and he argued that the German asylum system was a “road to freedom” for them.

Germany

Recently, however, the 50-year-old seems to have moved away from these views and accused Germany of seeking the Islamization of Europe.

“Germany must protect its borders from illegal immigration. It has become clear that the open border policy was a plan by ‘Angela Merkel to Islamise Europe’, he often wrote on the ‘X’ platform and directly expressed his sympathy for the Alternative for Germany (AfD): “Who else is fighting Islam in Germany?”, he wrote in his posts. Three years ago he even addressed the AfD proposing the establishment of an academy for ex-Muslims.

Germany

In another video posted on an American anti-Islam blog, Taleb A. appears to adopt a conspiracy theory of a “secret operation” by the German state to “hunt down and neutralize” Saudi ex-Muslims around the world, “while Syrian jihadists are granted asylum in the country.”

It appears from his posts and comments that he was a critic of Joe Biden’s immigration policy in the US and a fan of billionaire businessman Elon Musk.

The video before the attack

According to BILD, shortly before Taleb A. rent the black BMW X-5 and drive it to the Christmas market, he had posted a video, in which he introduced himself as “Taleb A. psychiatrist working in Germany” and in a chaotic monologue claimed, among other things, that in Germany critics of Islam are “actively and criminally” persecuted.