The German authorities said that last year they received information about the suspect in a a car attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, when five people were killed on Sunday.
The authorities have identified the suspect as a Saudi doctor who arrived in Germany in 2006 and obtained permanent residency. Police did not publicly name the suspect in line with privacy rules, but some German news reports identified him as Taleb A. and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.
Authorities say he doesn't fit the usual profile of extremist attackers. He described himself as a former Muslim who was highly critical of Islam and expressed support for the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in many social media posts.
He is in custody while the authorities investigate him.
The head of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Holger Münch, said in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF on Saturday that his agency had received a message from Saudi Arabia in November 2023, prompting authorities to take “appropriate investigative measures.”
German newspaper FAZ said it interviewed the suspect in 2019 and identified him as an anti-Islamic activist.
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“The person also posted a huge number of messages on the Internet. He also communicated with various authorities, expressed insults and even threats. However, he was not known to have committed acts of violence,” said Münch, whose office is in Germany. the equivalent of the FBI.
He said the warnings, however, turned out to be very vague.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees also told X on Saturday that it received a tip about the suspect late last summer.
“This was taken seriously, as were all the other numerous tips,” the office said. But he also noted that this is not an investigative body and that he has passed the information on to the responsible authorities. No other details were available.
The Central Council of Ex-Muslims said in a statement that the suspect had been “terrorizing” them for years, expressing shock at the attack.
“He apparently shared the views of the far-right AfD spectrum and believed in a large-scale conspiracy aimed at the Islamization of Germany. His false ideas went so far that he suggested that even organizations critical of Islamism were part of an Islamist conspiracy,” the statement said.
The group's chairman, 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's a psychopath who subscribes to far-right conspiracy ideologies.”
Police in Magdeburg, the capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, said on Sunday that four women, aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, and a 9-year-old boy had died.
Authorities said 200 people were injured, including 41 in critical condition. They were treated at several hospitals in Magdeburg, which is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin and beyond.
On Saturday evening, the suspect was brought before a judge, who behind closed doors ordered that he be remanded in custody on charges of murder and attempted murder. He faces possible charges.
The horror of yet another act of mass violence in Germany makes it possible that migration will remain a key issue as the country approaches snap elections on February 23. A deadly knife attack in Solingen in August pushed the issue to the top of the agenda, and prompted Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government to tighten border security.
Right-wing activists from across Europe have criticized German authorities for allowing high levels of migration in the past and for what they see as security failures now.
Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbanwho is known for his strong anti-immigration stance in the past, used the attack in Germany to lash out at the European Union's migration policy and called it a “terrorist act”.
At an annual press conference in Budapest on Saturday, Orbán insisted that “there is no doubt that there is a connection between the changed world in Western Europe, the migration that flows there, especially illegal migration, and terrorist acts.”
Orbán promised to “fight back” on the EU's migration policy and claimed without evidence that “Brussels wants Hungary to happen to Magdeburg.”