The attack on the Christmas market killed two people and injured scores of others [Getty]
The suspect behind the Christmas market attack in the German city of Magdeburg which killed at five people and injured over 200 others is a Saudi atheist activist named Taleb al-Abdulmohsen.
He allegedly carried out the attack on the market with a BMW and was arrested by German police at gunpoint. The five dead include a toddler.
Al-Abdulmohsen is a doctor specialising in psychiatry and psychotherapy and hails from the eastern Saudi city of Hofuf.
He moved to Germany in 2006 and gained refugee status in 2016. He was an outspoken atheist and ex-Muslim who helped Saudis who no longer believed in Islam – particularly women – leave their country.
On the social media platform X, Al Abdulmohsen described himself as “Saudi military opposition” and made wild allegations against Germany in his biography, saying it “chases female Saudi asylum seekers inside and outside Germany, to destroy their lives,” and “wants to islamize [sic] Europe”.
Al Abdulmohsen also managed a Twitter account called “Saudi Ex-Muslims”.
He expressed support for UK anti-Islam provocateur Tommy Robinson, the far-right German AfD party, and right-wing billionaire Elon Musk who has heavily promoted anti-immigrant narratives in recent months.
He also expressed sympathy with Israel and reposted tweets by the Israeli military’s Arabic-speaking official spokesman, Avichay Adraee.
His account includes material from many anti-Islam accounts, including a graphic video captioned “A Muslim woman is stoned to death by Muslims because she had an affair with a young man outside of marriage. This is Islamic law and you will see these scenes in the streets of your city very soon if you do not wake up.”
The New Arab cannot independently verify the footage in the video.
Abdulmohsen has previously given interviews to German and international media as well as right-wing websites. In 2017, seven years before he carried out his deadly attack, The New Arab published correspondence with him, while in 2019 the BBC interviewed him. He presented himself at the time as a human rights activist.
German local newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau reported five years ago that he had come to Germany for specialist training as a psychotherapist but then applied for asylum, after he was reportedly threatened with death for abandoning Islam.
Five days before carrying out the attack he railed against Syrian refugees in Germany in an interview with the right-wing RAIR Foundation.
“Germany is welcoming Syrians—including many Islamists—while simultaneously rejecting Saudi apostates, people who are genuinely fleeing Sharia-based death sentences,” he said.
