The death toll from Friday’s mass attack in Magdeburg rose to five, the number of seriously injured 41, dpa news agency learned from security sources.
The Bild tabloid and other media sources reported about more than 200 injured. Reiner Haseloff, Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, spoke on Friday evening about two dead and at least 60 injured. According to dpa’s latest information, the perpetrator of the attack is not an Islamist, but on the contrary, a critic of Islam. The 50-year-old doctor of Saudi Arabian origin defines himself as an “ex-Muslim”. In social media and in interviews, he partially expressed objections to the German authorities. Among other things, it throws up in their eyes that they are not doing enough against Islamism.
Security sources told the German news agency dpa that the suspect was in his 50s and was not known to law enforcement as an Islamist. The perpetrator is suspected of driving a rented car into the crowd at the Magdeburg Christmas market. On Saturday morning, the police made a restrained statement about whether to call the act an assassination.
Bild reports that he was probably under the influence of drugs.
Without citing sources, the paper wrote that the first drug test was positive. The suspect has been living in Germany since 2006. After years ago Saudi women fleeing their country entered the country with his support, he later wrote on his website in English and German: “My advice: don’t apply for asylum in Germany.”
debreceninap.hu
