Germans mourn the death of 5 people and the injury of 200 people in the attack on the Christmas market Crime News

A memorial service is being held in Magdeburg Cathedral, shaken by the fatal incident.

Germans gathered in Magdeburg to mourn the victims of a car attack in the eastern city that left at least five dead and 200 injured.

Authorities said a doctor rammed into a busy outdoor Christmas market on Thursday, killing four adults and a nine-year-old child and wounding 41 others, and the death toll could rise.

Church bells rang in the city at 19:04 (18:04 GMT) on Saturday. attack the evening before.

A memorial service was held in the city’s main cathedral, mainly for relatives of the victims, as well as emergency responders and invited guests, including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Those who were not allowed to attend the service gathered outside the church to watch it on the big screen.

Several hundred people gathered in the central square of the city, some of them laid flowers and lit candles.

Among the crowd were people carrying placards with far-right slogans.

The violence shocked the German city of about 240,000 people, 130 km (80 miles) west of Berlin.

This led to several other places in Germany canceling their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and in solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss.

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

Motives are still under investigation

The suspect is a 50-year-old expatriate from Saudi Arabia who identified himself as an anti-Islam activist and surrendered to police at the scene.

Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said at a press conference that the suspect is being investigated for five suspected murders and 205 suspected attempted murders.

Nopence said investigators are investigating whether the attack was motivated by the doctor’s dissatisfaction with Germany’s treatment of Saudi refugees.

Police have not released the suspect’s name publicly, but several German news agencies identified him as Taleb A and said he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Posts on the suspect’s X account, verified by Reuters, suggest he supports anti-Islam and far-right parties, including the Alternative for Germany.

A Saudi source told the agency that Saudi Arabia alerted German authorities after the suspect’s X account posted “extremist” views threatening peace and security.

The Welt newspaper reported, citing security sources, that a risk assessment carried out last year by German state and federal criminal inspectors concluded that the man “does not pose a particular threat”.

Germany has been hit by a series of attacks in recent years, including a knife attack in August at a festival in the western city of Solingen that killed three people and wounded eight others.

Friday’s attack also comes eight years after a man drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many more. The attacker was killed in a shootout in Italy a few days later.