Magdeburg [Germany], December 24: The alleged perpetrator of the deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market last week in Germany had been contacted by police just weeks before the incident, authorities said on Monday.
The attack in the central city of Magdeburg on Friday, which killed five people and injured 235 others, is believed to have been carried out by a Saudi national identified only as Taleb A according to German privacy laws.
Investigators have been searching for a motive since the incident, amid suggestions that authorities failed to heed warnings about the man.
Tamara Zieschang, the interior minister of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, on Monday told lawmakers in Magdeburg that police met the man twice - in September 2023 and October 2024 - to warn him about his behaviour.
The first conversation was held at the police station in Salzlandkreis, near Magdeburg, while the meeting this year took place at the suspect's workplace.
Zieschang did not comment publicly on the background to the meetings, but told members of the state parliament that she would present relevant context in the confidential part of the parliamentary session.
Authorities had previously reported that 200 people were injured in the incident.
The suspect, a Saudi national identified only as Taleb A according to German privacy laws, has been living in Germany since 2006 and was granted political refugee status in 2016. He was most recently working as a doctor in the town of Bernburg, south of Magedeburg.
He was detained at the scene and is being held in police custody.
Magdeburg, a city of some 237,000 to the west of Berlin, is the capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
The Interior Ministry of the northern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern said on Monday that Taleb A became known to authorities as a potential suspect in 2015.
Regional authorities had informed the Federal Criminal Police Office at the Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre, which is supported by Germany's federal and regional government, about the man's possible intention to carry out an attack on February 6, 2015, it said.
Source: Qatar Tribune