Suspect in German Christmas market attack remanded

A court in Germany has ordered the pre-trial detention of a Saudi man, arrested on suspicion of carrying out the deadly attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg on Friday.

Five people were killed and over 200 were injured when a car drove into a crowd at the market.

The Saudi suspect, previously named as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, was remanded on charges of five counts of murder, multiple attempted murders and bodily harm.

The local prosecutor in Magdeburg, Horst Nopens, said a possible factor in the attack may have been the suspect's dissatisfaction with the Government's handling of immigration.

Meanwhile, the German government is facing growing questions about whether more could have been done to prevent the Christmas market car-ramming attack.

The suspect, who is a 50-year-old psychiatrist, had made online death threats against German citizens and had a history of quarrelling with state authorities.

News magazine Der Spiegel, citing security sources, said the Saudi secret service had warned Germany's spy agency BND a year ago about a tweet in which Abdulmohsen threatened Germany would pay a "price" for its treatment of Saudi refugees.

Die Welt daily reported, also citing security sources, that German state and federal police had carried out a "risk assessment" on Abdulmohsen last year but concluded that he posed "no specific danger".

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has condemned the "terrible, insane" attack Friday in Magdeburg and made a call for national unity amid high political tensions as Germany heads towards 23 February elections.

He said it was important "that we stick together, that we link arms, that it is not hatred that determines our coexistence but the fact that we are a community that seeks a common future".

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But as German media dug into Abdulmohsen's past, and investigators gave away little, criticism rained down from the far-right and far-left parties already bitterly opposed to the Scholz government.

The far-right AfD's parliamentary head Bernd Baumann demanded Mr Scholz call a special session of the Bundestag on the "desolate" security situation, arguing that "this is the least that we owe the victims".

And the head of the far-left BSW party, Sahra Wagenknecht, demanded that Interior Minister Nancy Faeser explain "why so many tips and warnings were ignored beforehand".

Vigils held as Germany mourns people killed in attack

Magdeburg has been in deep mourning over the attack on Friday evening that left a nine-year-old child among the dead and casualties being treated in 15 regional hospitals.

Of the 205 injured, around 40 were in critical condition, with doctors fighting to save their lives.

A spontaneous memorial was created by grieving families and local residents at a church overlooking Magdeburg's Christmas market yesterday.

At first, as people laid flowers outside the church in the early morning, there were just expressions of sorrow and grief.

Andrea Reis, 57, arrived with her daughter Julia, 34, and reflected on a narrow escape.

It was only because her daughter wanted them to keep walking round the market rather than stop to eat that they were not in the path of the car that ploughed through the market, she said.

"It was the terrible sounds, children calling 'mama, papa,', 'help me' - they're going round in my head now," Reis said, a tear trickling down her cheek.

Another young woman sobbed, bent double with grief as an older couple embraced her.

As the day passed, politicians, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, came to lay flowers at the spontaneous memorial.

Additional reporting Reuters