Suspect in Magdeburg Christmas market attack involved in 7 cases before incident
05/01/2025
The suspect drove the car at high speed and crashed into the Magdeburg Christmas Market, leaving five dead and nearly 300 others injured. - File photo
MAGDEBURG: The suspect in the car crash at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, had been involved in seven investigation proceedings in the two years before the attack, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper on Saturday.
Based on information confirmed by the German news agency (dpa), the man was the complainant in five cases and the accused in two other cases.
Shortly before Christmas, the suspect, known only as Taleb A, according to German privacy laws, drove a car at high speed crashing into the Magdeburg Christmas Market, killing five and injuring nearly 300 others. He is currently in custody. Taleb A, who has been working as a doctor at a psychiatric hospital in Bernburg since 2020, is tasked with treating addicts who have committed crimes.
In one of the investigation proceedings, Taleb A was found to have threatened a lawyer who had represented him, including his family and staff at the lawyer's office. After the complaint was made, the police visited him at work on Oct 4, 2024 to warn him that he was being monitored.
A spokesman for Salus, the company that operates the hospital, told dpa that the police did not share the reason for the visit with the hospital administration.
According to the law, the police are allowed to share personal data with public and non-public bodies for the purpose of preventing crime.
However, the provincial criminal investigation office stated that there was no indication that "data transfer could have prevented harm in the suspect's workplace environment," making the conditions for data sharing not met.
