MAGDEBURG (GERMANY), 4 (DPA/EP)
The perpetrator of the attack on the Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, Taleb A., had seven court appearances in the last two years alone, based on five complaints made by him and as a defendant in two other proceedings.
In information published by the newspaper ‘Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’ and confirmed by DPA from security sources, it is stated that the seven judicial investigations took place between April 2023 and October 2024.
According to the same sources, the perpetrator of the attack went unnoticed by the authorities because his characteristics did not fit the usual profiles for this type of crime.
Taleb A., whose full name is protected by German privacy laws, presented himself on social media as a vehement critic of Islam and Saudi Arabia, his native country.
However, their enemies also included the German state and a secular refugee organization from the city of Cologne. Confusingly, he also leveled accusations against the German authorities, whom he criticized for not doing enough to combat Islamism.
Shortly before Christmas, the 50-year-old man broke into the Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, with his car. As a result of the mass accident, five people died and almost 300 people were injured. He currently remains detained.
Among the judicial processes in which he was involved in the aforementioned period, the Police began an investigation following a publication by him on the social network X, made on December 1, 2023.
In it, he criticized Germany’s treatment of Saudi asylum seekers and threatened revenge for it. The agents attempted to meet with Taleb A. over threats on five occasions, but were unsuccessful. According to information from the ‘Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’, the attempt to obtain a search warrant was rejected by a judge and the procedure ended up being archived.
In another case, the doctor of Saudi origin, who had lived in Germany since 2006 and where he obtained political asylum in 2016, had to appear as a defendant after threatening a lawyer who had represented him in a previous case.
Once the charges were filed against him in that case, the Police visited Taleb A. on October 4, 2024, in what is known as “Gefährderansprache”, a police practice to convey to a subject that he is being subjected to surveillance and faces an increased risk of being caught if a crime is committed.
Taleb A. had been working since 2020 as a doctor in charge at a hospital in Bernburg (Salzland district), where he often treated addicted criminals.
Despite being responsible for the patients’ psychiatric care and the visit in which the police informed him that they were monitoring him occurred at work, there was subsequently no exchange in this regard between the authorities and his employer.
“The police have not revealed the reason for the visit to the employee Taleb A.,” a spokeswoman for the Salus company explained to DPA.
In order to prevent crimes from being committed, security authorities have the possibility of transferring personal data to public and non-public organizations.
In response to a query, the Criminal Investigation Office of the state of Saxony-Anhalt stated that there was no indication “that the transfer of data could prevent dangers in the employer’s environment.”
According to the current state of the investigation, the police authority added, the requirements to transfer these personal data regarding the police surveillance to which the perpetrator of the attack was being subjected were therefore not met.
For its part, the Salus company did not question the doctor’s professional qualifications. “Taleb A. gave his superiors no reason to doubt his medical qualifications,” the spokeswoman said.
COMPLAINTS
Between April 2023 and October 2024, Taleb A. filed five complaints. Firstly, he reported that a USB memory containing evidence of crimes committed by the Saudi State had been stolen from his mailbox.
He also fell out with an organization that looks after the interests of atheist refugees. He twice accused employees of sexual misconduct. In addition, he filed two other cases for alleged threats from the Saudi Government and for defamation.
Dissatisfied with the handling of a case by the Cologne public prosecutor’s office and threatening it, he received an official warning at the Salzlandkreis district police station on September 28, 2023.
Saudi Arabia, according to security sources in that country, had warned Germany about this man. “The case is currently being thoroughly investigated in Saxony-Anhalt, but also by the federal security authorities,” the police announced.
The possible legal guilt of the perpetrator of the attack is also being studied, since according to the Naumburg Prosecutor’s Office an expert opinion will now be commissioned to determine whether Taleb A. suffers from any type of mental illness.