I am told that the Saudi authorities are now working flawlessly to match everything they have on the Magdeburg market suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, and share him with the ongoing German investigation “in every possible way”.
Within the imposing sand and fortress-like walls of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh, there is perhaps a justified sense of resentment.
The ministry had previously warned the German government about Al Abdulmohsen's extremist views.
She sent four items. called “verbal notes”, three of which were to German intelligence agencies and one to the Foreign Office in Berlin. The Saudis say there is no answer.
Part of the explanation for this may lie in the fact that Taleb al-Abdulmohsen was granted asylum by Germany in 2016, a year after former chancellor Angela Merkel opened her country's borders to admit more than one million migrants from the Middle East and 10 years after al-Abdulmohsen settled in Germany.
Coming from a country where Islam was the only religion allowed to be practiced in public, al-Abdulmohsen was a very unusual citizen.
He had turned his back on Islam, becoming a heretic in the eyes of many.
Born in the Saudi date palm oasis of Hofuf in 1974, little is known about his early life before he decided to leave Saudi Arabia and move to Europe at the age of 32.
Active on social media, on his Twitter (later X) account, he identifies himself as a psychiatrist and founder of the Saudi rights movement, along with the hashtag @SaudiExMuslims.
He founded a website aimed at helping Saudi women flee their country to Europe.
The Saudis claim he was a people trafficker and Interior Ministry investigators, Mabaatheth, are said to have an extensive file on him.
In recent years, there have been reports of Saudi dissidents coming under hostile surveillance by Saudi government agents in Canada, the United States and Germany.
There is no doubt that German authorities, both federal and state, made some serious lapses in the Al-Abdulmohsen case.
Whatever the reasons for not responding, as the Saudis claim, to repeated warnings about his extremism, he was clearly a danger to his host country.
There is also the failure to close or at least protect the emergency access road to the Magdeburg Alter Markt which allowed him to drive his BMW into the crowds.
The German authorities have protect the market layout and said the investigation into the suspect's background is ongoing.
But a complicating factor here is that Saudi Arabia, despite being considered a friend and ally of the West, has a poor human rights record.
Until June 2018 Saudi women were banned from driving and even those women who publicly called for this ban to be lifted before this were prosecuted and imprisoned.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, still only 30 years old, is hugely popular in his own country.
While Western leaders have largely distanced themselves from him after his alleged involvement in the horrific The 2018 assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. The 2018 assassination of Jamal Khashoggi.which the crown prince denies, at home his star is still on the rise.
Under his de facto rule, public life in Saudi Arabia was transformed for the better, with men and women allowed to associate freely and cinemas reopened, along with large, spectacular sporting and entertainment events, even concerts performed by Western artists such as David Guetta and the Black Eyed Peas.
But there is a paradox here.
While public life in Saudi Arabia is flourishing, there is a simultaneous crackdown on anything that even hints at more political or religious freedom.
Heavy prison sentences of 10 years or more have been handed down for simple tweets.
No one is allowed to even question the way the country is run.
It was against this background that Germany seemed to drop the ball on Taleb al-Abdulmohsen.