Magdeburg holds church service for victims of Christmas market attack

The bells of Magdeburg Cathedral have been rung to remember the victims of what is being treated as a deliberate attack on the city’s Christmas market that killed five people and injured around 200 others.

Magdeburg marked the tragedy on Saturday evening with church bells across the city tolling in unison at 7:04pm, the exact time of the attack on Friday in the city of roughly 240,000 people.

The alleged attack saw a man, named only as Taleb A. in the media, drive a car into the busy Christmas market.

A nine-year-old child and four adults were killed and around 41 people have been so badly hurt that authorities fear the death toll could rise.

“There is of course the incomprehensibility of the event, the grief with the relatives, with the injured, the incomprehension of how people can do this to other people. Sometimes you almost feel like you’re watching a movie. But the fact is, it is reality,” said Regina Stieler Hinz, Magdeburg’s Deputy Mayor.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz attended the Saturday evening service at the cathedral alongside his Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The driver of the vehicle, a 50-year-old doctor who immigrated from Saudi Arabia in 2006, surrendered to police at the scene.

He’s being investigated for five counts of suspected murder and 205 counts of suspected attempted murder, prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said at a news conference.

Among other things, investigators are looking into whether the attack could have been motivated by the suspect’s dissatisfaction with the way Germany treats Saudi refugees, Nopens said.

Although Nopens mentioned the treatment of Saudi immigrants angle, authorities said that they still don’t know why the suspect drove his black BMW into the crowded market.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appears to have been an active user of the social media platform X, sharing dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticising the religion and congratulating Muslims who had left the faith.

He also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe”. 

German authorities aware of Taleb A. for years

In 2013, he was convicted by the Rostock District Court of “disturbing the public peace through threats of violence” and fined the equivalent of 90 daily rates.

Furthermore, Saudi Arabia had reportedly issued three warnings to Germany about his extremist views, according to German news agencies. However, Der Spiegel reported that the specifics of these warnings remain unclear.

A year ago, German police planned to issue Taleb A. with a “Gefährderansprache”, a warning intended for individuals considered potential threats.

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This measure, designed to alert individuals that they are under surveillance and deter criminal activity, was ultimately not carried out.

The reasons for this remain undisclosed, according to Tom-Oliver Langhans, director of the Magdeburg police, who spoke at a press conference following the attack.

Shock across Germany

The violence, just days before Christmas, has shocked Germany and prompted several communities across to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss. 

“Especially these days, when the longing for love, security and an intact world is particularly strong, such an act is all the more frightening and abysmal. And somewhere we are also speechless and helpless, but volunteers, the emergency pastoral workers were on site and many helped out. And I am incredibly grateful for that,” said Magdeburg’s Catholic Bishop, Gerhard Feige.

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Although many people went to the site with candles to mourn the victims, several hundred far-right protesters gathered in a central square in Magdeburg with a banner that read ‘remigration,’ German news agency dpa reported.

Berlin kept its many markets open but increased its police presence.

Germany has suffered a string of extremist attacks in recent years, including a knife attack that killed three people and wounded eight at a festival in the western city of Solingen in August.

Friday’s attack came eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 and injuring many others. 

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The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.