The softly spoken psychiatrist was unfailingly polite in his brief conversations with his neighbors. One called him ‘reserved but sincere’.
Others assumed he was also a decent sort. Why else was he quoted in the liberal media as a humanitarian “activist” who spoke out in support of female Saudi refugees fleeing oppression? But little about Dr. Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, 50, was what it seemed.
Alone in his ground-floor flat in the medieval German town of Bernburg, his patina of decency quickly faded, along with his ready smile.
There, behind tightly closed curtains, he worked on his computer late into the night, his “kaleidoscope of paranoid views” finding disturbing expressions online.
Some of his tweets were inflammatory and, as Germany struggled to make sense of Friday’s massacre in Magdeburg, terrifyingly prophetic.
“If Germany wants war, we will get it,” he wrote in August. “If Germany wants to kill us, we will slaughter them, die or go to prison proudly…Germany will pay the price.”
Dr. Al-Abdulmohsen seemed to discover a conspiracy at every step. The police were out to get him, he was furious. Even kill him. Although it never became exactly clear why.
Elsewhere, he expressed support for political groups such as Alternative for Germany (AfD), which have been accused of flirting with Nazi rhetoric. He also supported our own far-right rabble-rouser, Tommy Robinson.
Several German media identified the suspect as Taleb A (photo) and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy
In the photo: Taleb A, the alleged perpetrator of a car ram that killed five people and injured more than 200 in an attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, East Germany
Police officers secure the area during the German Chancellor’s visit to the site of a car ram attack at the Christmas market in Magdeburg
Unaware of all this, the neighbors in his apartment building were encouraged by his professional status. However, some of his colleagues at the Salus-Fachklinikum psychiatric institution thought differently.
According to court records, he “viciously assaulted” a colleague in 2018, but strangely the incident did not lead to his dismissal.
And as the years passed and he became increasingly angry with the German government and legal system, he continued to post vague but violent threats online.
Those in the Saudi community in Germany viewed him as “erratic.” One said there was ‘something wrong with his mind’. Someone else called him a “pariah.”
What finally tipped this man of contradictions over the edge isn’t exactly clear, at least not yet. Just as little is known about his personal life. None of his neighbors had ever seen him with a partner “or in the company of anyone.”
But what’s clear is that his catastrophic date with fate was a long time coming – and there were plenty of warnings along the way.
In the immediate aftermath of Friday’s attack, the perpetrator was believed to be an Islamist terrorist. The clues seemed obvious: the Christian target, the known method of attack. We had been here before. Not only in Germany – where in 2016 a Tunisian man with ties to the Islamic State (ISIS) drove a truck into crowds gathering at a church market in Berlin – but also in Nice and London.
The fact that the suspect turned out to be from Saudi Arabia only confirmed the theory. Yet this man, who came to Germany in 2006 to study medicine, would confuse us all.
Stuffed animals, candles and floral tributes lie near the spot where a car plowed into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg
Mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside a church near the market on this cold and dreary day
Debris and empty stalls are seen at a closed Christmas market a day after a car ram attack in Magdeburg
To begin with, he had long rejected Islam. And although he did not formally fall into the arms of the far right, he shared extremist sentiments and praised politicians for their fight against the ‘Islamization’ of Europe.
In a five-minute audio message posted shortly before the attack on Madgeburg, he said he held the German nation responsible for crimes including the murder of Socrates in 399 BC.
He also accused authorities of stealing a USB stick from his mailbox and said he “held the Germans responsible for what I encounter.”
Dr. Al-Abdulmohsen was threatened with deportation in 2015, claiming he was now an ex-Muslim and an atheist. He convinced officials that if he were returned to Saudi Arabia, he would be executed for apostasy.
He set up an Arabic internet forum called wearesaudis.net, where he gave practical advice to the country’s dissidents, especially women, on how to seek asylum in Western countries.
On
The now dissident doctor helped dozens of Saudi women reach the West. Mostly they fled because they had renounced Islam. Yet his good deeds were overshadowed by concerns about his obsessive behavior.
Yasmine Mohammed, a Canadian-Palestinian ex-Muslim human rights activist now living in Europe, exchanged messages with him.
The scene of a car ram attack has been cordoned off at the Christmas market
: A general view of the area, surrounded by police tape
Piled up clothes left in a cordoned off area at the scene of a car ram attack
Barrier tape and police vehicles can be seen at the entrance to the Christmas market in Magdeburg
Ms Mohammed told The Mail on Sunday he was complaining about a Germany-based Saudi woman running an “atheist refuge” for female asylum seekers, accusing her of using the charity as a front for a sex trafficking ring.
‘He started talking to me obsessively about her and sent me documents to prove his point. “I was once married to a jihadist, so I know how misogynistic men behave, and he was like that,” she said.
Ms Mohammed added: ‘I thought his behavior was unstable. Finally I told him that if he has all this evidence why doesn’t he go to the police. I finally told him not to contact me anymore and blocked him.
‘The last contact I had with him was in September. But when I saw what I saw (in the reports from Madgeburg), I just got sick. He was an atheist and he was against it
ISIS, but he launched an attack like ISIS. He attacked Christians in a Christian market. There’s no point.’
The attack has also confused security officials and experts. A security source said: ‘This man was neither Islamist nor far-right, the areas agencies are looking at, so it would be difficult to recognize him. This is a highly unusual attack.”
Britain’s counter-terrorism police and experts have now come up with a category for attackers like Dr Al-Abdulmohsen. They are described as people without a fixed ideology.
According to experts, these individuals are not bound by a fixed dogma like Islamists or far-right groups. Instead, they absorb extremism from different directions.
A security source said: ‘But the end result is always the same: violence.’