What we know about the suspect behind the German Christmas market attack

A driver who rammed a car into a crowded Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, killing at least five people and injuring more than 200, has been identified by authorities as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who has lived in Germany since 2017 a decade and worked as a doctor.

Authorities are working to determine the motive of the attacker, who has made anti-Islam remarks in the past and said he helped people, particularly women, escape Saudi Arabia.

According to Tamara Zieschang, the interior minister of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, whose capital is Magdenburg, the suspect first came to Germany in 2006 and had a permanent residence there. Zieschang said the man worked as a doctor in Bernburg, a small town about 25 miles south of Magdeburg.

The man has yet to be officially identified, but German media have named him as Taleb A., following Germany’s convention of keeping secret the full name of suspects in criminal cases.

According to German authorities, he was arrested and is said to have acted alone.

In a now-deleted feed on X, which appeared to belong to Taleb A., he made anti-Islamic statements and identified himself as a Saudi dissident. He spoke openly about renouncing his Islamic faith, expressed sympathy for the right-wing extremist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and accused Germany of promoting the Islamization of the country.

Germany took in more than a million refugees and asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016, mostly from the Middle East. Germany, initially praised for its openness, saw support for these policies decline with the rise of the anti-migrant AfD.

The Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry released a statement condemning the attack after it emerged the suspect was a Saudi citizen.

Saudi authorities had already warned their German counterparts about the suspected attacker three times, a source with knowledge of the communications told CNN.

The first warning came in 2007 and was related to concerns from Saudi authorities that Taleb A. had expressed radical views of various kinds, the source said.

Saudi Arabia considers the suspect a fugitive and requested his extradition from Germany between 2007 and 2008, the source said, adding that German authorities refused, saying they feared the man’s safety should he return.

Saudi authorities claimed the man harassed Saudis abroad who opposed his political views. They also noted that he had become a supporter of the AfD and had developed radical anti-Islamic views, the source said.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser described the man as an “Islamophobe” on Saturday. She gave few other details and said that the investigation was still in its early stages and that security authorities were investigating the background to the attack. Authorities have not yet provided any information about a motive.

Taleb A. appears to be the same man who has been in contact with the media in the past about his efforts to help people leave Saudi Arabia.

Some experts have already pointed out that the man was an unusual suspect in a mass attack of this kind.

“After 25 years in this ‘business’ you think nothing could surprise you. But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance of Islamists – that was really not on my radar,” said Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King’s College London , wrote on X.

CNN’s Nic Robertson, Sandi Sidhu, Sophie Tanno, Nadine Schmidt, Isaac Yee, Billy Stockwell, Catherine Nicholls, Benjamin Brown and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed reporting.

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