The Christmas market killer “is a covert jihadist and a covert Islamist,” said the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel spoke yesterday at a mass rally outside Magdeburg Cathedral, near where Saudi doctor Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, plowed his rented SUV into a crowd at the Christmas market on Friday.
Nine-year-old André Gleißner was killed and at least 235 people were injured in the horrific attack, dozens of whom are still in serious condition, according to authorities.
Weidel embraced the conspiracy theory that the attacker had been a covert jihadist and described the murder as “a crime beyond the imagination of everyone here; “a crime committed by an Islamist full of hatred against everything that makes us human, against us as a people, against us as Germans, against us as Christians.”
AfD figures and supporters have spread an unsubstantiated theory that Abdulmohsen was a closet Islamist who hid his beliefs under an ancient doctrinal trend called taqiyyah, which holds that Muslims can hide their beliefs in non-Islamic societies.
Police are still puzzled over why Abdulmohsen attacked the market, with prosecutor indicating that the doctor’s complaint about how Germany was treating dissident Saudi asylum seekers could be a possible motive.
Abdulmohsen, who was detained next to the dented vehicle, has expressed anti-Islamic views, anger at German immigration officials, including former Chancellor Angela Merkel, and support for far-right narratives about the “Islamization” of Europe.
Weidel’s comments come as German magazine Spiegel revealed that Abdulmohsen left a will in his rental car, stating that he expected to die during his rampage after repeatedly promising to die “this year” on social media.
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel spoke yesterday at a mass rally outside Magdeburg Cathedral, near where Saudi doctor Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, plowed his rented SUV into a crowd at the Christmas market on Friday.
Police arrested an “unstable” 50-year-old Saudi doctor identified as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen after he allegedly crashed his SUV into a crowded market in the city of Magdeburg.
Police officers watch people attend a commemoration organized by the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) on the cathedral square.
Abdulmohsen reportedly bequeathed his entire fortune to the German Red Cross, but did not include any political messages in the document.
He was taken into custody on five counts of murder and several counts of attempted murder, as well as causing serious bodily injury, prosecutors said Saturday night, but not so far on terrorism-related charges.
The 50-year-old is currently being held in a high-security prison near Magdeburg, where he is constantly monitored by cameras and must wear paper clothes “so as not to hang himself in his cell,” according to the Bild tabloid.
Weidel said at last night’s rally that “Germany should provide security to those who are persecuted, but should reject at the border those who take advantage of our hospitality and disregard our values.”
The crowd responded with chants of “deportation, deportation” and “he who does not love Germany, let him leave Germany.”
He added: “We want something to finally change in our country, that we can finally live safely again, that we never again have to cry with a mother who had to lose her son in such a terrible and brutal way.”
Weidel called for a “moment of reckoning,” after saying in X that the attack in Magdeburg “would not have been possible without uncontrolled immigration.”
Weidel, whose party polls around 20 percent but has been rejected as a pariah by all other major parties, added: “The state must protect citizens through a restrictive immigration policy and constant deportations.”
Bild writes that “although the background to the terrible attack in Magdeburg is still unclear, it is already clear: there will be a “before” and an “after” in this election campaign.”
The Saudi suspect, a psychiatrist and anti-Islam activist al-Abdulmohsen, had made death threats to German citizens online and had a history of disputes with state authorities.
Nine-year-old André Gleißner (pictured) died during the devastating attack on Friday night.
Al-Abdulmohsen drove his SUV to the crowded Magdeburg Christmas market on Friday night.
Here, police officers arrest the man who plowed his rented SUV into crowds at the Christmas market on Friday.
A man cries at the site in memory of the victims of the attack on the Christmas market on Friday
He said that “the attack changes everything” and will refocus the campaign, so far on Germany’s dire economic situation, on the question of “who do people trust to make our homeland safe again.”
The massacre has put the hot-button issues of security and immigration back at the center of politics ahead of Germany’s Feb. 23 snap elections.
Also speaking at last night’s rally was Magdeburg-born AfD politician Oliver Kirchner: “Diversity has become synonymous with ‘stay at home if you want to live longer.'”
‘We protect our Christmas markets like borders during the Cold War, but we leave our borders open to all.
“Authorities who have ignored all warnings from the secret services, who do not deport anyone, not even when there is a threat to kill Germans. The BKA and LKA say that in 2023 the suspect did not pose any concrete threat.
‘The mistake is not that there are missing bollards, the mistake is that we need them. When is enough? Are five dead, more than 40 seriously injured and more than 200 injured not more than enough? (…) It will never be now again.
‘Here the Ministry of the Interior has failed because it did not take seriously several warnings from a Saudi Arabian secret service. The fault lies not with the AfD, but with the current government and the Ministry of the Interior here in Saxony-Anhalt (German state).’
Tempers were running high over the weekend after it was revealed police were warned about the “unstable” Abdulmohsen in September last year but did nothing more than take screenshots of his twisted online threats.
As the German media investigated Abdulmohsen’s past and investigators revealed little, criticism poured in from far-right and far-left parties already bitterly opposed to the government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
A sign says “fed up with seeing people murdered” after the car attack at the Christmas market
Thousands of people have gathered in Germany to express their fury over the Christmas market massacre.
People carry candles during an AfD election campaign in front of Magdeburg Cathedral.
People hold a sign that says “Remigration now!” During a protest after a car plowed into a crowd at a Christmas market, in Magdeburg, Germany, on December 21.
Al-Abdulmohsen was pictured wearing a white T-shirt (right) as he arrived at court on Saturday night, where he was being held on remand charged with murder, attempted murder and grievous bodily harm.
The Saudi suspect, a psychiatrist and anti-Islam activist Abdulmohsen, had made death threats to German citizens online and had a history of disputes with state authorities.
The news magazine Der Spiegel, citing security sources, said the Saudi secret service had warned the German spy agency BND a year ago about a tweet in which Abdulmohsen threatened that Germany would pay a “price” for its treatment of Saudi refugees.
A source close to the government told AFP on Monday that Saudi Arabia had previously requested Abdulmohsen’s extradition.
“There was a request (for extradition),” the source said, without giving the reason for the request, adding that Riyadh had warned that “it could be dangerous.” Saudi Arabia had allegedly warned Germany “many times” about Abdulmohsen.
Abdulmohsen, who presented himself as a victim of persecution who had renounced Islam, arrived in Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status ten years later, according to German media and a Saudi activist.
The doctor often denounced what he considered the Islamization of Germany.
In August, Abdulmohsen wrote on social media: “Is there a path to justice in Germany without blowing up a German embassy or randomly massacring German citizens?… If anyone knows, please let me know.”
In a post from December last year, she wrote: “Germany is the only country – apart from Saudi Arabia – that chases Saudi women asylum seekers around the world to destroy their lives.
‘Revenge will come soon. Even if it costs me my life. I will make the German nation pay the price for the crimes committed by its government against Saudi refugees.’