Taleb A. (50), originally from Saudi Arabia, has been living in Germany since 2006, where he allegedly has political asylum.
He worked as a doctor in the field of psychiatry in the town of Bernburg, not far from Magdeburg. In the hospital where he worked, they say that he was often absent from work due to illness.
During November and December, he allegedly stayed several times in the "Maritim" hotel in Magdeburg, from where he probably prepared for this crime.
According to Spiegel, the first findings indicate that the perpetrator was under the influence of narcotics. The blood analysis has not been done yet.
On Friday, a Saudi man ran over people in a crowd at a Christmas market for about four hundred meters in a rented black BMW before the car stopped and he was arrested.
Although many thought that he was an Islamist, it seems to be quite the opposite - Taleb A. was a fierce opponent of Islam.
"We can say with certainty that the perpetrator was an Islamophobe," Interior Minister Nancy Fezer said at the scene.
He saw himself as the "protector" of Saudi women
Five years ago, Taleb A. spoke to journalists about his "activism". He claimed to be advising thousands of Saudis around the world on how to flee the country or obtain political asylum in the West.
He apparently saw himself first and foremost as a "savior" of women from a conservative Saudi society where women have few rights.
He claimed that the institutions in Germany are advising these women wrongly, and that many of them returned to Saudi Arabia, where they were threatened with family retaliation.
As he said, he himself turned his back on Islam.
In recent years, A. has increasingly sympathized with the views of the right-wing, partly extreme Alternative for Germany.
Thus, on the X network in early December, he accused former chancellor Angela Merkel of a "criminal project to Islamize Europe."
Since there is no death penalty in Germany, he wrote in English, Merkel should spend the rest of her life in prison. "But if the death penalty is reintroduced, she deserves to be killed."
A dispute with an organization
Hamed Abdel-Samad, a German-Egyptian author and critic of Islam, states that only after the attack in Magdeburg did he see that A. wrote him a message earlier in November.
In it, he accused the organization "Secular Aid to Refugees" and specifically one employee of that organization of abusing Saudi women.
"I will soon do something that will make this corrupt organization a global topic," the perpetrator wrote.
The killer obviously had "Secular Aid to Refugees" on his mind for years. The organization announced that until 2018, there was a possibility for A. to work for them, but that since 2019, they communicate exclusively through a lawyer, and that they filed a report against A. to the police for "verbal attacks" and "the most terrible slanders".
Fined 600 euros
The fact that Taleb A. was supposed to appear in court the day before the attack, but he did not, is also strange.
Namely, in February he appeared at a police station in Berlin to file a criminal complaint, but he spoke strangely and was not specific. Dissatisfied with the work of the police, he picked up the phone to seek "legal advice" only to call 911.
He was fined 600 euros for misusing the emergency number, against which he filed an appeal, but then he did not appear before the court in Berlin.
Otherwise, he was not known to security circles as an extremist.
Spiegel learns that Saudi Arabia warned Germany three times about this man, but it is unclear why exactly.
Last year, he was reported to the Provincial Crime Bureau for a tweet in which he allegedly wrote that Germany would "pay the price" for allegedly discriminating against Saudi refugees, but the report was not deemed relevant.
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