A German court on Friday jailed for life a Saudi psychiatrist who killed six people and wounded more than 300 when he drove a rented SUV through a crowded Christmas market in 2024.
Taleb Jawad al-Abdulmohsen, 51 — an anti-Islam activist and adherent to right-wing conspiracy theories — listened to the verdict from inside a bullet-proof glass box, his hands shackled and wearing blue jeans and a shirt.
He was convicted of six counts of murder and 338 counts of attempted murder.
The court in the eastern city of Magdeburg ruled that the crime was of “particular severity”, making it much harder for Abdulmohsen to ever win release from prison.
During the months-long trial, Abdulmohsen admitted to driving the vehicle — a BMW X3 compact SUV with over 340 horsepower — through the crowd on December 20th, 2024 but denied deliberately running people over.
Prosecutors described that claim as preposterous.
The vehicle reportedly reached a speed of 48 kilometres per hour during the rampage that killed a nine-year-old boy and five women aged between 45 and 75.
Abdulmohsen was arrested as he emerged from the badly damaged vehicle.
The attack “defies human comprehension” and left the families of victims with “simply indescribable” suffering, prosecutor Matthias Boettcher said during closing arguments.
A psychiatric expert diagnosed the accused with narcissistic personality disorder, but found that he was fully criminally responsible and remained dangerous.
The trial required the construction of a massive temporary courtroom on the outskirts of Magdeburg to accommodate the hundreds of victims, relatives and others.
More than 100 witnesses and around 40 lawyers representing 200 civil parties to the case appeared during the proceedings.
‘No remorse’
The car-ramming, one of a series of deadly attacks committed by foreign nationals in recent years, intensified a highly charged debate over immigration in the midst of a national election campaign.
Magdeburg’s Christmas market opened again a year later with concrete blocks and armed police protecting the square. Some visitors told AFP they felt it now resembled a fortress.
The use of a vehicle evoked jihadist attacks of recent years, but police digging into Abdulmohsen’s background quickly discovered a very different motivation — an intense anti-Islam stance and sympathy for far-right politics, including the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
His testimony in court was sometimes incoherent and riddled with conspiracy theories and fringe far-right ideas.
He staged a hunger strike that forced the court to continue the trial without him for a time.
Among the many observers who crowded into the courtroom Friday was Dieter Montag, 70. He told AFP that he hoped to support the victims of the attack and was “pleased with the verdict”.
But he also said he was frustrated that Abdulmohsen had “again drawn attention to himself” by demanding a repeat reading of the verdict, claiming he had been unable to follow it properly due to a technical issue.
For the victims, his conviction represents a “first step toward moving forward”, said Jens Bergholz, 59, another regular observer of the trial.
Abdulmohsen, who arrived in Germany in 2006, had previously accused German authorities of failing to adequately protect Saudis fleeing their country for religious or political reasons.
He had had previous run-ins with authorities and had been fined for making threats of criminal violence.
According to the prosecutor, Boettcher, Abdulmohsen’s motive lay in a conflict with a Cologne-based refugee organisation against which he had lost a civil suit.
He sought “revenge” for the court defeat and a series of unsuccessful criminal complaints, and wanted to “continue to attract public and media attention”, the prosecutor argued.
During the trial Abdulmohsen showed “no remorse, regret or introspection whatsoever”, Boettcher added.
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