A source close to the Saudi government has told Agence France-Presse that Saudi authorities previously requested the extradition of the main suspect in Friday’s Christmas market attack in Germany, as multiple agencies admitted they had received warnings about him.
Echoing reporting from over the weekend, the source said Saudi Arabia warned Germany “many times” about Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a Saudi citizen with a history of spreading anti-Islamic propaganda on social media. The source did not explain in what way he was considered potentially dangerous.
“There was [an extradition] request,” the source told AFP, without giving the reason for the request, adding that Riyadh had warned he “could be dangerous”.
Questions are mounting in Germany about whether Friday’s attack in Magdeburg, which killed five people, might have been preventable. Reports have emerged about lapses in security, questionable immigration decisions and attempts by police to confront Abdulmohsen over threatening behaviour that were allegedly not followed through.
Abdulmohsen, 50, a consultant psychiatrist, is being held in police custody on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and grievous bodily harm.
Four women and a nine-year-old boy were killed in the attack, when a black Mercedes SUV ploughed for 400 metres into crowds of people at the Christmas market in the centre of Magdeburg, in eastern Germany. More than 230 people are now known to have been injured in the three-minute attack, 41 of whom remain in a critical condition. The number of injured was revised upwards on Monday from a previous count of about 200.
Holger Münch, the head of Germany’s federal criminal police office, BKA, told German television that Germany received a warning from Saudi Arabia last year but an investigation found it too vague to act upon.
Police attempted to approach Abdulmohsen for a so-called “threat analysis” discussion but apparently let the opportunity go after failing to find him at home.
Abdulmohsen’s reputation for posting threatening messages online and in person is at the centre of the murder investigation. On Sunday, Christian Pegel, a state interior minister, said the suspect had referred to the 2013 Islamist terror attack on the Boston Marathon during a professional dispute at around that time.
In Magdeburg, where a sea of flowers and candles have been left at the site of the attack, the city of 240,000 residents is trying to come to terms with what happened. City authorities criticised as “deeply disrespectful” the numerous attempts to politicise the attack.
The far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland, which is polling second in the run-up to a snap election in February, invited its supporters to join a rally in the nearby cathedral square on Monday evening, despite Abdulmohsen having repeatedly expressed his support for the party and its affiliates on social media.
The AfD’s leader in Saxony-Anhalt state, Jan Wenzel Schmidt, called for Germany to close its borders, and people in the crowd chanted: “Deport, deport, deport!”
A counter-demonstration under the banner of Don’t Give Hate a Chance took place at the same time.
On Saturday, far-right protesters from across Germany, dressed in black and disguising their faces, had gathered in Magdeburg shouting – in reference to immigrants – “throw them out”.
Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, has urged parties across the political divide to pull together and quickly pass laws on police reform and biometric surveillance that are at risk of being sidelined, delayed or scrapped altogether following the collapse of the government last month.
In an interview with Der Spiegel, Faeser said: “It’s clear we must do everything in order to protect the people of Germany from such horrific acts of violence. To do this, our security authorities need all the necessary powers as well as more personnel.”
The opposition conservatives said Germany urgently needed a review of domestic security forces’ ability to access intelligence, in particular digital data, and they were scathing about the fact that often authorities are dependent on information from abroad to foil attacks on German soil.
“It cannot be the case any longer that we are satisfied with the fact that information about violent criminals and terrorists often only comes from foreign services,” Günter Krings, the CDU’s justice spokesperson, told German media.
He said it must be made easier for security services to apprehend dangerous people who were brought to their attention before they had the chance to carry out attacks.
Security at many Christmas markets around the country has been heightened after Friday’s attack, in which the attacker used a corridor meant for emergency vehicles to penetrate the market.
Police in the north-western city of Bremerhaven said they had arrested a 67-year-old man who had posted a TikTok video in which he threatened to carry out knife attacks on people with dark skin in his local market on Christmas Day.
Earlier this year a group of women who had left the Muslim faith participated in an international conference in Oslo called Celebrating Dissent. More than a dozen complained that Abdulmohsen harassed them online at the time of the conference. One forwarded a complaint about the messages to the German authorities but said she received no response.
One of the women said: “I received 18 messages from him in quick succession. He seemed to have a problem with women. Some of the messages were about women’s clothing. About 18 or 19 other women attending this conference also received messages from him. The experience left me with a knot in my stomach.”
She said she was not certain he held the anti-Muslim beliefs he claimed to have, and that he had tweeted support for Hamas.
Ex-MuslimsInternational said in a statement: “Abdulmohsen was known to our coalition as a stalker and cyberbully.”
