Grief and anger are boiling in the city of Magdeburg after an attacker used a lane for emergency vehicles to enter a Christmas market, killing five people and wounding more than 200.
On a visit on Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, ministers and regional political leaders were heckled by members of the public, some of whom appeared angry at what was criticized as a security lapse.
German authorities defended the design and security on the market.
Authorities are also facing questions after reports they were alerted last year about the suspect, with police saying they made an assessment of whether the perpetrator might pose a potential threat a year ago.
The suspect was placed in pretrial detention and faces charges of murder, attempted murder and grievous bodily harm.
Normally, at this time of year, German city centers are filled with shoppers and revelers drinking mulled wine, but the mood is very different this year.
The main Christmas market has been cordoned off and surrounded by police trucks while armed officers patrol nearby stores and shopping centres.
There is sadness in the air in Magdeburg, as well as bewilderment and anger, as people wonder how this happened.
When Schultz and his colleagues exited the cordoned-off market during their visit on Saturday, they were met with boos, heckling and shouts of “hau ab,” an extremely aggressive form of the phrase “get lost.”
Some people seemed angry at the noticeable decline in security. Others seemed annoyed and generally annoyed with Germany's political leaders.
Security has been tightened at Christmas markets across Germany since a similar attack in Berlin in 2016 when a man drove a truck into a crowd of people at the market, killing 12 people.
Open-plan Christmas markets are now surrounded by some sort of barriers – usually large concrete blocks, as in Magdeburg.
However, the gap in the barriers was large enough to allow emergency vehicles to pass.
Emergency responders need an evacuation route in a “traditional” emergency, and all agencies involved have approved the plan, City Administrator Ronnie Krug told reporters at a news conference on Saturday.
“The concept of safety and security must, on the one hand, protect those who visit the event as much as possible, but must also ensure, at the same time, that if something happens, they are able to leave the site safely and quickly,” he said.
“This may be something that could not have been prevented,” he added.
German media reported that before the attack, there were warnings about a potential threat from the suspect.
The suspect, a doctor from Saudi Arabia named Talib Al-Abdul Mohsen, arrived in Germany in 2006 and in 2016 was recognized as a refugee.
An atheist, he ran a website aimed at helping other former Muslims flee persecution in their Gulf homelands. His social media was filled with anti-Islam sentiment and conspiracy theories.
At the press conference on Saturday, Magdeburg Police Chief Tom Oliver Langhans said police had made an assessment of whether the perpetrator might pose a potential threat, “but that discussion was one year ago.”
He added that investigations into the suspect's past are continuing and declined to comment further.
One of that information is believed to have come from Saudi Arabia, the suspect's home country.
A source close to the Saudi government told the BBC that it had sent four official notices known as “verbal notes” to the German authorities, warning them of what it said were the “extremely extremist views” held by Al-Abdul Mohsen.
However, a counter-terrorism expert told the BBC that the Saudis may have been conducting a disinformation campaign to discredit someone who tried to help young Saudi women seek asylum in Germany.
Langhans said on Saturday that he had no information when asked about Saudi Arabia issuing warnings.
Later, the head of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), Holger Münch, told public broadcaster ZDF that his office received notification from Saudi Arabia in November 2023. He said local police had taken appropriate investigative measures, but the matter was not specific.
He added that the suspect “made various contacts with the authorities, insulted them and made threats, but he was not known for acts of violence.”
Munsch said previous investigations would need to be reconsidered.
