What we know about Magdeburg market attack suspect Abdulmohsen

A 50-year-old Saudi-born man is being held in Germany on suspicion of Friday night's car attack on hundreds of people visiting Magdeburg's Christmas market.

The attack killed five people, including a nine-year-old boy and four women, and left more than 200 injured, with many in a critical condition.

Police believe the suspect acted alone, but significant details have emerged about him that indicate this was a very different attack from anything Germany has seen before.

Taleb al-Abdulmohsen has lived in Germany since 2006 and is described as a psychiatrist who was living about 50km (30 miles) south of Magdeburg, in the town of Bernburg.

Abdulmohsen does not fit the profile of attackers who caused mass casualties at Christmas markets in Berlin in 2016 and Strasbourg in France in 2018, or more recently at a festival in Solingen in August.

He is not an extreme Islamist - in fact, if you believe his social media posts and broadcast interviews, he appears to be have abandoned the faith and to have turned into an outspoken critic of Islam.

The motive behind the Magdeburg attack is for now unclear, but a picture of the suspect has emerged based on his past and the various interviews he gave.

He was granted asylum in 2016 and ran a website that aimed to help other former Muslims flee persecution in their Gulf homelands.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said it was "clear to see" the suspect held "Islamophobic" views.

He has also expressed sympathy on social media for Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), known for its anti-immigration stance.

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As for the motive of Friday's killings in Magdeburg, Holger Münch of the federal criminal police has said it is too early to say.

"He has anti-Islamic views; of course he's also been involved with extreme-right platforms and given interviews," he told German media. "But drawing a conclusion between what he says and what he's done... it's not yet possible to conclude it's politically motivated."

The suspect had been on the radar of German authorities for years, and the Saudis even tipped them off in November last year. Saudi sources said four official notifications known as "Notes Verbale" were sent warning German authorities of his "very extreme views".

Although Saxony-Anhalt police did investigate him, he was never considered a threat because he had exhibited no violence before. Any potential threat was judged "too unspecific".

Magdeburg police chief Tom-Oliver Langhans said police had conducted a threat assessment, "but that discussion was one year ago".

Authorities may have been wary of Saudi warnings. A counter-terrorism expert told the BBC the Saudis may have been mounting a disinformation campaign to discredit someone who tried to help young Saudi women seek asylum in Germany.

In 2013 Abdulmohsen was fined for breaching the peace by making a series of threats, and his flat was searched by the police. Then the following year he threatened to carry out acts that would command "international attention" if he did not get the support he wanted, officials said.

At the time he was living in northern Germany, and in 2015 he is alleged to have made threats on a hotline that he would get hold of a gun and take revenge on judges in his previous cases, reports say.

By 2016 he was granted asylum apparently on the grounds of political persecution, and in recent years he has accused several people of being spies for the Saudi government, according to German reports, and was himself accused of defamation.

A picture has built up of a man who studied psychiatry and then worked from 2020 in a correctional facility for criminals in Bernburg, without being very good at his job.

His employer said he had been off work since October because of leave and illness, but a colleague told the local Mitteldeutsche Zeitung" (MZ) they called him "Dr Google" because he always had to check his diagnosis online first.

In the meantime he was active on social media, promoting conspiracy theories regarding an alleged plot by German authorities to Islamicise Europe, and re-tweeting posts from the leader of the AfD and a far-right activist.

He maintained a website designed to help ex-Muslims flee the Gulf region. It carries the message in English as well as Arabic: "My advice: do not seek asylum in Germany."

He gave several interviews, including to the BBC and most recently German news magazine Die Zeit last year. The man who interviewed him, Christian Fuchs, said it was clear he no longer trusted the authorities and "had a manic personality".

Nancy Faeser told German newspaper Bild that investigators would examine "in detail" what information authorities had on Abdulmohsen in the past and how he had been investigated.

The German Office for Migration and Refugees announced in a post on social media that it had fielded a complaint about the suspect, which it had "taken seriously", but as the office was not an investigative body, it had referred the complainant to other authorities.

At 19:02 on Friday evening (18:02 GMT), the first call to emergency services was made.

The caller reported that a car had driven into a crowd at a Christmas market in the middle of Magdeburg.

The caller assumed it was an accident, police said, but it soon became clear this was not the case.

The driver, police said, had used traffic lights to turn off the road and on to a pedestrian crossing, leading him through an entry point to the market which was reserved for emergency vehicles, injuring a number of people on the way.

Footage showed the driver speeding the vehicle through a pedestrian walkway between Christmas stalls.

Eyewitnesses described jumping out of the car's path, fleeing or hiding.

Police said the driver then returned to the road the way he came in and was forced to stop in traffic. Officers already at the market were able to apprehend and arrest the driver here.

Footage showed armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground next to a stationary vehicle - a black BMW with significant damage to its front bumper and windscreen.

The entire incident was over in three minutes, police said.

A nine-year-old boy, André Gleissner, and four women aged 45, 52, 67 and 75 are confirmed to have died in the attack.

More than 200 people were injured and at least 41 of those are in a critical condition.

The Schöppenstedt fire department paid tribute to Gleissner, in a Facebook post.

The fire department said the nine-year-old was a member of the children's fire brigade in Warle – about an hour's drive from Magdeburg.