Germany: Prosecutor’s Office Says Multiple Hit at Christmas Market Was an Attack
Investigators inspect a damaged car at the scene after a car was driven into a crowd at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, 21 December 2024. Photo: EFE/EPA/FILIP SINGER
December 21, 2024 Hour: 1:10 pm
Horst Nopens, the prosecutor in Magdeburg, stated this Saturday that the attack at a central Christmas market in the eastern German city was “an attack,” although it’s still unclear whether the multiple vehicle assault was an act of terrorism.
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“We are talking about an attack, if it was a terrorist attack we do not know yet,” the prosecutor said at a press conference on an attack whose latest balance sheet, according to authorities, includes five dead -four adults and one nine-year-old- and 200 wounded -41 of them in serious.
According to Nopens, the alleged perpetrator of the hit, identified by German media as a Saudi psychiatrist who had arrived in Germany in 2006 and who received refugee status in 2016 and currently in police stations, had spoken of the motives that led to this act, for which he now faces five counts of murder and 200 counts of attempted murder.
However, the prosecutor did not go into detail about the detainee’s motives, which still need to be investigated in order to find out what really led him to commit this act of violence.
“We must evaluate data storage devices, computers, mobile devices and ultimately know or hope to know what moved him,” said Nopens, accompanied by Tom Oliver Langhans, director of the Magdeburg Police Station, and Ronni Krug, head of the city council.
The first detailed how the attack was carried out on Friday in just three minutes, since between 18.02 GMT and 18.05 GMT the multiple hit took place, The driver was arrested on a street near the Christmas market and attacked by driving through it at high speed.