By Thomas Escritt and Rachel More
MAGDEBURG, Germany (Reuters) – The death toll from a car crash at a German Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg rose to four on Saturday, according to German newspaper Bild, after a Saudi man was arrested on suspicion of crash a car into the crowd.
Dozens of people were injured in the attack on Friday night, which came amid intense debate over security and migration during an election campaign in Europe’s largest economy in which the far right is gaining strongly in polls.
Police were not immediately available to comment on reported casualty figures. Local officials had initially said that at least two people had died and warned that the toll could rise.
The Bild report said 41 people were seriously injured, 86 were receiving hospital treatment for serious injuries and another 78 suffered minor injuries.
German authorities are investigating a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who has lived in Germany for almost two decades in connection with the hit-and-run. Police searched his house overnight.
The motive is still unclear and police have not yet identified the suspect. He has been named in German media as Taleb A.
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia had warned German authorities about the attacker after he posted extremist views on his personal X account that threatened peace and security.
Der Spiegel reported that the suspect was a sympathizer of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The magazine did not say where it obtained the information.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
German newspaper FAZ said it interviewed the suspect in 2019 and described him as an anti-Islam activist.
“People like me, who come from an Islamic background but are no longer believers, find neither understanding nor tolerance from Muslims here,” he said. “I am the most aggressive critic of Islam in history. If you don’t believe me, ask the Arabs.”
Andrea Reis, who had been at the market on Friday, returned on Saturday with her daughter Julia to place a candle next to the church that overlooks the place. She said if it hadn’t been for a few moments, they may have been in the path of the car.
“I said ‘let’s go get a sausage,’ but my daughter said ‘no, let’s keep walking.’ If we had stayed where we were, we would have been in the path of the car,” he said.
Tears streamed down her face as she described the scene. “Kids screaming, crying for mom. You can’t forget that,” he said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is scheduled to visit Magdeburg later on Saturday.
His Social Democrats are trailing both the far-right AfD and the conservative opposition in opinion polls ahead of snap elections scheduled for February 23.
The AfD has led calls to crack down on migration to the country.
His chancellor candidate Alice Weidel and her co-leader Tino Chrupalla issued a statement on Saturday condemning the attack.
“The terrible attack at the Magdeburg Christmas market, in the middle of the peaceful season before Christmas, has shocked us,” they stated.
A leading member of Scholz’s Social Democrats in the Bundestag parliament warned against jumping to conclusions and said it appeared the attacker had no Islamist motives.
“Now we have to wait for the investigations. It seems that things are different here than initially assumed,” Dirk Wiese told the Rheinische Post newspaper.