A man tried in the East German city of Magdeburg in Medeburg to kill six people and tried to kill hundreds more by deliberately plowing his SUV into a packed Christmas market last December.
Talab Al-Abdulmsahsen, 51, a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia, appeared in court on Monday wearing handcuffs and accompanied by armed police. He will be made into a Bullet-Proof case throughout the trial.
In a long indictment that was read for several hours, the chief public administrator, Matthias Böttcher, said that the defendant was acting in a bad number of people “, when, on 20 December 2024, he” deliberately sent his 2-ton, 340-horsepower car into several pedestrians “.
In what Böttcher described as a carefully planned attack that took place between 7.02pm and 7.04pm, most of the deaths occurred within a few seconds.
A nine-year-old boy and five women, aged between 45 and 75, were killed. An additional 338 people were injured, 31 of them in a prosecutors described as life-changing.
Abdulmsahsen is described as a critic of Islam and a supporter of theories that better look at “personal animosity” and a sense of irrationality.
Because of what prosecutors say is his harsh rhetoric and history of making violent threats, including on social media accusations that they could have prevented the attack they did more. Saudi authorities warned their German counterparts about him for specific threats he made in 2024.
Other questions are being asked about how Abdulmesen will overcome the barriers placed on the market in response to a deadly market in Berlin in 2016 by an Islamist terrorist.
The Magdeburg court was built for the trial at a cost of €4.5m (£4m). It includes space for more than 170 co-plaintiffs and their attorneys. The trial, which is scheduled for 50 days, is expected to last until March.
There was no formal request in the German legal system but the accused told the court that he planned to respond to the charges “in several days, maybe even days”, the court agencies “, the court agencies”, the court agencies reported.
Abdulmsahsen, who came to Germany as a refugee from Saudi Arabia in 2006 and has been working as a psychiatrist since 2020, faces life imprisonment if convicted.
The attack is a series of atrocities committed by foreign nationals that increase the heat of the debration in Germany before the Supreme Election in February Immigration is once again expected to dominate the next state election in September in Saxony-anhallt, where Magdeburg is located and where the AFD is predicted to do well.