German authorities received information last year about Milli, a suspect in the Christmas market attack

German authorities said they received information about suspects in a car attack last year Christmas market More details emerged on Sunday about the 5 people killed in Magdeburg.

Authorities have identified suspicious As a Saudi doctor who came to Germany in 2006 and received a permanent residence permit. Police have not released the name of the suspect in line with privacy rules, but some German news agencies identified him as Taleb A. and said he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

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

He is in jail as the authorities investigate him.

Holger Münch, head of the Federal Criminal Police Office, said in an interview with Germany’s ZDF television station on Saturday that his office received information from Saudi Arabia in November 2023, which led authorities to initiate “appropriate investigative measures.”

“Adam also published a lot of articles on the Internet. He contacted various authorities, insulted and even threatened. However, he was not known to have committed acts of violence,” he said.

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He proved that the warnings were too vague.

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees also said on Saturday X that it received information about the suspect at the end of last summer.

“This was taken as seriously as any of the numerous tips,” the office said. But he also noted that it is not an investigative body and passed the information on to the responsible bodies. He did not give any other details.

In a statement, the Central Council of Ex-Muslims said the suspect was shocked by the attack and said he had been “terrorizing” them for years.

“He seems to share the beliefs of the far-right spectrum of the AfD and believed in a large-scale conspiracy to Islamize Germany. “His delusions reached the point where he believed that even organizations critical of Islamism were part of an Islamist conspiracy,” the statement said.

The head of the group, Mina Ahadi, said in the same statement: “At first, we suspected that he might be a mole in the Islamist movement. But now I think he is a psychopath who adheres to ultra-right conspiracy ideologies.”

Police in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt state, said on Sunday that four women, aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, and a 9-year-old child were killed.

Officials said that 200 people were injured, including 41 people in serious condition. They were treated in numerous hospitals in Magdeburg, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin and beyond.

The suspect was brought before a judge on Saturday evening and ordered to be held behind closed doors on charges of murder and attempted murder. He faces probable cause charges.

The horror of yet another act of mass violence in Germany suggests that migration will remain a major issue as the country heads into early stages. Election on February 23. A deadly knife attack in Solingen in August pushed the issue to the top of the agenda, prompting Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government to tighten border security measures.

Right-wing figures from across Europe have criticized German authorities for allowing high levels of migration in the past and what they now see as security failures.

Years ago, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, known for his strong anti-migration stance, used the attack in Germany to criticize the European Union’s migration policies and migration policies. assessed it as a “terrorist act”.

At his annual press conference in Budapest on Saturday, Orbán insisted that “there is no doubt that there is a connection between the changing world in Western Europe and the migration that flows there, especially illegal migration and acts of terrorism.”

Orban promised to “fight” against the EU’s migration policies and said without proof that “Brussels wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary.”

© 2024 The Canadian Press