By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-12-21 18:36:24 | Updated at 2024-12-22 05:01:35
10 hours ago
The Saudi suspect in Germany’s deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market held strongly anti-Islam views and was angry with Germany’s migrant policy, official said Saturday.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the “terrible, insane” attack that killed five people and shocked the nation, days before Christmas and eight years after a jihadist drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin.
Police were puzzling over the motive of Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, the top suspect after an SUV ploughed at high speed through a dense crowd Friday, also injuring 205 people in the eastern city of Magdeburg.
The mass carnage sparked sorrow and revulsion, with a nine-year-old child among the dead and casualties being treated in 15 regional hospitals.
Germany has been hit by multiple deadly jihadist attacks, but evidence gathered by investigators and his past online posts painted a different picture of Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old doctor of psychiatry.
A self-described “Saudi atheist” who as an activist who helped women flee the oil-rich kingdom, he has railed against Islam but also against what he saw as Germany’s permissive attitude towards refugees from other mainly Muslim countries.
