The German government faced growing questions on Sunday about whether more could have been done to prevent the Christmas market car-ramming attack that killed five people and injured over 200.
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.
News magazine Der Spiegel, citing security sources, said the Saudi secret service had warned Germany’s spy agency BND a year ago about a tweet in which Abdulmohsen threatened Germany would pay a “price” for its treatment of Saudi refugees.
And in August Abdulmohsen wrote on social media: “Is 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.”
Die Welt daily reported, also citing security sources, that German state and federal police had carried out a “risk assessment” on Abdulmohsen last year but concluded that he posed “no specific danger”.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has condemned the “terrible, insane” attack on Friday in the city of Magdeburg and made a call for national unity amid high political tensions as Germany heads towards February 23 elections.
He said it was important “that 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”.
But as German media dug into Abdulmohsen’s past, and investigators gave away little, criticism rained down from the far-right and far-left parties already bitterly opposed to the Scholz government.
