The Magdeburg Christmas market massacre suspect had boasted to the BBC about a website he set up to help ex-Muslims seek asylum in the West.
Psychologist Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, last night rammed into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German town of Magdeburg, leaving at least two dead and nearly 70 injured.
Al-Abdulmohsen, an anti-Islam doctor from Saudi Arabia, arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked to help ex-Muslims, particularly women, flee their countries after turning their backs on Islam.
He created a website called wearesaudis.net to provide information on escape routes for people leaving Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.
His plight to help asylum seekers settle in Europe was documented in a 2019 interview with the BBC World Service, in which it was revealed he was forced to leave his home country due to his atheism.
If I have time, I spend, you know, totally helping Saudi asylum seekers between 10 to 16 hours a day, if I have time, he told the broadcaster at the time.
He also explained how most people who approached him for help through his website were Muslim women seeking to escape their strict families.
Meanwhile, analysis of his social media reveals tweets in support of Germanys anti-immigration party AfD.
The Magdeburg Christmas market massacre suspect had boasted to the BBC about a website he set up to help ex-Muslims seek asylum in the West
Psychologist Taleb al-Abdulmohsen told the BBC he was forced to leave Saudi Arabia due to his atheism
Footage taken in the minutes after the crash, which happened at around 7pm, showed Taleb al-Abdulmohsen lying on the ground next to the smashed up BMW
He has also made comments supporting Elon Musk, far-right thug Tommy Robinson and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
His X bio reads: Saudi Military Opposition. Germany chases female Saudi asylum seekers, inside and outside Germany, to destroy their lives. Germany wants to islamize Europe.
Posts include retweets of graphic videos, including one of a young Muslim woman purportedly being stoned to death because she had an affair with a young man outside of marriage.
Another was a retweet of a post that simply read: Can you find one positive thing about Islam?
In videos posted hours before the attack, he claimed that German authorities were opening his mail and stealing items including a USB stick.
I consider the Germans, as citizens, responsible for the persecution I am facing he said in one video.
Currently in this country, the nation that is actively criminally chasing Islam critics is the German nation, he said in another.
He also appears to be a fan of AfD. In June, he retweeted party leader Alice Weidel, writing with typos: The left are crazy. We need the AfD to protect the police from them.
German police can be seen aiming their weapons at Abdulmohsen shortly before his arrest yesterday after he rammed a car into a crowd of people at Magdeburg Christmas market
Forensics police inspect the car that rammed into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 21, 2024
German police officers stand guard beside their vehicle at the scene of a vehicle-ramming attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, 21 December 2024. According to the Magdeburg police, at least two people were confirmed dead, scores were injured, and the suspect, a Saudi national, was taken into custody
Police vans and ambulances stand next to the annual Christmas market in the city center following a possible terror incident on December 20
Firefighters work at a cordoned-off Christmas Market, where a car drove into a crowd on Friday evening, in Magdeburg
Overturned wheeliebins and debrisn are seen as police officers walks through a closed Christmas market where a car crashed into a crowd injuring more than 60 people the evening before
A mourner lights a candle near the Christmas market today where a car crashed into a crowd killing at least two and injuring more than 60 people the evening before. At least two people were killed and over 60 injured
He also retweeted the right-wing extremist AfD activist Naomi Seibt with the following quote: Tyranny is based on the docility of cowards. I choose to be brave.
No official motive for the attack has been identified by the police.
Authorities in Magdeburg say two people are dead, including a toddler, while 68 people were injured in the rampage, 15 of them seriously.
The suspect was arrested following the crash which took place at 7:04pm in the city of Magdeburg, according to unidentified government officials in the state of Saxony-Anhalt who spoke to the dpa news agency.
A search of his name and details of his work revealed he was interviewed by the Frankfurter Rundschau, a regional newspaper, in 2019.
He came to Germany as a visiting doctor during his specialist training as a psychotherapist and later applied for asylum here because he had been threatened with death for turning away from Islam. The 44-year-old is recognized as a political refugee, the newspaper wrote of him five years ago.
He said in a 2019 interview with the paper: Nine out of ten people from Saudi Arabia who ask me about the asylum system are women.
Bild reported that the car was driven at least 400m (1,300ft) across the Christmas market, per a police spokesperson. Car can be seen ploughing into crowd of people
Other asylum activists report similar figures. This may be because for Saudi Arabian women, asylum is the only path to justice. Even if a woman is not oppressed, her fate depends on her male guardian.
There are women who say that they have good husbands who do not oppress them, but they wonder what will happen if the man dies.
If the new man beats her, she will not get any help. A woman is only protected if she has powerful men in her family.
Just five days before carrying out the attack, Al-Abdulmohsen gave an interview with the right-wing RAIR Foundation in which he said: If a Syrian citizen applies for asylum in Germany, the chance to be granted asylum is 99.8%… While if a Saudi citizen applies for asylum in Germany, that chance is only 70%, and I know personally that many of those rejected are ex-Muslims.
Germany is welcoming Syrians—including many Islamists—while simultaneously rejecting Saudi apostates, people who are genuinely fleeing Sharia-based death sentences.
Several cops were seen crowding around the man last night with their weapons drawn while shouting at him. Cops were also seen shooing the growing crowd around the arrest incident, as a police officer crouches down over him with a torch.
From what we currently know he was a lone attacker so we dont think there is any further danger for the city, he added.