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Five people have died and over 200 people are injured after the attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg in Germany.
Taleb Abdul Jawad is singled out as the suspect behind the attack, according to several German media.
– It is a terrible tragedy, says the country’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The chaos after the crazy ride at the Christmas market
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The 50-year-old doctor Taleb Abdul Jawad rented a car and drove towards a Christmas market in Magdeburg.
Five people have died and over 200 people are injured after the 400-metre-long horror ride.
Taleb Abdul Jawad came to Germany from Saudi Arabia in 2006. According to the German newspaper, Taleb Abdul Jawad was a doctor and worked as a psychiatrist in the city of Bernburg. He himself is a German citizen.
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full screen Taleb Jawad, 50, was arrested by police after the spree. Photo: AP
Condemns the attack
On Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Reiner Haseloff, Minister President of Saxony-Anhalt, held a joint press conference.
Olaf Scholz said, among other things, that Germany will support those who have been affected by the attack, describing the attack as “a terrible tragedy”.
He condemned the attack.
– Normally, a Christmas market is a relaxed and joyful place. It is a terrible tragedy that so many people have been injured and killed, said Olaf Scholz, expressing his sympathy with the injured and the families of those who died.
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full screen The motive behind the attack is still unclear. Photo: AP
Regarding the suspected perpetrator, Olaf Scholz said that it is important that “we investigate in detail and carefully what has happened” and that “Germany stands united”.
The motive behind the attack remains unclear.
Spoken before the attack
Before the attack in Magdeburg, Taleb Abdul Jawad is said to have written on platform X: “The left is crazy. We need the AfD to protect the police from them, according to German newspaper Welt.
The newspaper has linked an X account to the man where he spreads conspiracy theories. Among other things, he has called himself the “Saudi military opposition” and writes, among other things, that Germany “hunts female Saudi asylum seekers in and outside Germany to destroy their lives”. He has also written that “Germany wants to Islamize Europe”.
Taleb Abdul Jawad was interviewed by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2019. In that interview, he called himself “the most aggressive critic of Islam in history”.