Police officers walk through a cordoned-off Christmas Market, where a car drove into a crowd on Friday evening, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. Police arrested a 50-year-old Saudi doctor at the scene after two people were killed and 68 injured when an SUV ploughed through the festive crowd in Magdeburg on Friday night.
Media pointed to his social media posts in which he expressed views critical of Islam, sympathetic to the far right and even warned of the"dangers" of an Islamisation of Germany. The attack came almost eight years to the day after Tunisian man drove a truck through a Berlin Christmas market, killing 13 people. It was the country's most deadly Jihadist attack.
The Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz, center, visits a Christmas Market, where a car drove into a crowd on Friday evening, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec 21, 2024. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote that"the anticipation of a peaceful Christmas was suddenly interrupted" but cautioned that"the background to the terrible deed has yet been clarified".
Several European governments expressed shock over the attack. The Saudi government highlighted its"solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims", in a statement on social media platform X, and"affirmed its rejection of violence".