A Saudi doctor went on trial in Germany Monday accused of driving an SUV through a Christmas market, killing six people and wounding more than 300.
Taleb Jawad al-Abdulmohsen, a 51-year-old psychiatrist, was arrested next to the battered rental vehicle after the attack on December 20, 2024 in the eastern city of Magdeburg.
Prosecutor Matthias Boettcher told the court that the accused wanted “to kill a large number of people” by driving the two-tonne vehicle “deliberately into a mass of pedestrians”.
A nine-year-old boy and five women aged between 45 and 75 were killed.
Abdulmohsen — a critic of Islam and an adherent of far-right views and radical conspiracy theories — was motivated by anger over “supposed insults and frustration”, Boettcher said.
As the trial started, Abdulmohsen, with a long, greying beard, smiled as he was seated in a bullet-proof cubicle then followed the rest of the proceedings without visible emotion.
He faces six counts of murder and 338 counts of attempted murder in a trial expected to last until at least March.
To accommodate the hundreds of victims and witnesses, the trial is being held in a large temporary hall.
Abdulmohsen faces life in prison if convicted.
– ‘I drove the car’ –
On Monday afternoon he addressed the court himself for around an hour and a half, admitting, “I am the one who drove the car” but did not show any remorse.
The rest of his speech consisted of rambling diatribes against politicians, police and the media, as well as seemingly unrelated sections about religion, violence against women in Saudi Arabia and other topics.
Occasionally he stopped to cry and blow his nose.
At one point the presiding judge intervened to remind him to stay on the topic of the charges he faces.
Abdulmohsen is due to continue addressing the court on Tuesday.
Abdulmohsen arrived in Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status 10 years later.
Active as a migrant rights campaigner, he was also a prolific social media user, writing rambling posts critical of Islam and repeating far-right conspiracy theories.
The spark for the attack seems to have been a court ruling against Abdulmohsen in a civil lawsuit brought by other refugee activists.
The rampage, which came after another deadly attack at a Christmas market in Berlin in 2016, provoked a heated debate about the security of the festive installations.
Some cities have cancelled the beloved winter tradition because of the cost of anti-terrorism measures.
On Monday, the mayor of Magdeburg, Simone Borris, told a council meeting that state authorities had refused permission for the city’s Christmas market to open for now due to security concerns.
– Market security concerns –
The market, due to open on November 20, has been told to install access controls and barriers that can stop vehicles weighing up to 7.5 tonnes, the city administration said in a statement on its website.
Potential security flaws at last year’s market are due to be examined as part of the trial.
Magdeburg resident Birgit Lange, 57, told AFP that the attack had made her “more alert”.
She said she would still be going to the Christmas market this year because “if we all hid away it wouldn’t help anyone.”
The Magdeburg attack was one of several committed by foreign nationals that inflamed Germany’s debate on immigration in the run-up to a general election in February.
That election saw the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) place second with a record 20 percent of the vote.
The party is now riding high in opinion polls in Saxony-Anhalt state, of which Magdeburg is the capital, and observers say it has a real chance of taking control of a state for the first time in elections next year.
As the trial began, Abdulmohsen held up a laptop with the words “Sept 2026” displayed on its screen, the date of the election.
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