Officials defend Magdeburg security days after Christmas market attack killed five

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - BERLIN — Saxony-Anhalt's Interior Minister has defended security measures in Magdeburg two days after a car drove into the city's Christmas market, killing five and injuring more than 200.

"Police made intensive preparations to secure Christmas markets throughout the state. In Magdeburg in particular, we made intensive use of the new legal possibility for random checks on bags in order to enforce the ban on weapons and knives at the Christmas markets," Tamara Zieschang said.

"This was combined with a high police presence at all Christmas markets and I believe that the high police presence at the Magdeburg Christmas market also contributed to the fact that the perpetrator was apprehended within three minutes."

Zieschang said she was also aware that many Christmas markets across Germany had been canceled or were taking place in more subdued surroundings with no music and fewer lights.

While there has been criticism about how this attack could happen and calls for greater coordination between federal and state authorities, some experts say Germany's festive markets, which attract thousands of people in the weeks leading up to Christmas, can never be totally secured.

That's partly because emergency vehicles need to be able to access the site and also because by law multiple emergency exits need to be in place.

But German authorities are also under pressure to explain why they didn't act more swiftly on tipoffs they received last year about the suspect who has been named only as Taleb A. in line with German privacy laws.

The head of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Holger Münch, said in an interview with broadcaster ZDF that his office received a tipoff from Saudi Arabia in November 2023, which led authorities to launch "appropriate investigative measures."

"The man also published a huge number of posts on the internet. He also had contact with various authorities, made insults and even threats. However, he was not known to have committed acts of violence," said Münch.

He said that the warnings, however, proved to be very unspecific.

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees also said it received a tipoff about Taleb A. in late summer last year.

"This was taken seriously, like every other of the numerous tips," the office said in a post on X.

But it also noted that it is not an investigative authority and that it referred the information to the responsible authorities. It gave no other details.

And the Central Council of Ex-Muslims said in a statement that the suspect had "terrorised" them for years.

"He apparently shared beliefs from the far-right spectrum of the AfD and believed in a large-scale conspiracy aimed at Islamising Germany. His delusional ideas went so far that he assumed that even organisations critical of Islamism were part of the Islamist conspiracy," the council said in a statement.

Taleb A., a Saudi national who moved to Germany in 2006 and was granted permanent residency, was charged with murder and attempted murder on Sunday.

Authorities say he does not fit the usual profile of perpetrators of extremist attacks. He described himself as an ex-Muslim who was highly critical of Islam and, in many posts on social media, expressed support for the far-right anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

He remains in custody as authorities investigate him.

Holger Münch of the Federal Criminal Police Office said investigations so far indicated the attack did not have an Islamist terrorism angle.

"Quite the opposite. The facts of the case before the attack can be classified in the same way as one might fear. However, the motivation is completely different. An atypical perpetrator, if you like, who does not fit into such a grid," he told ZDF.

Meanwhile, the Christmas market in Magdeburg has reopened but with an increased police presence. — Euronews