Germany pledges security inquest into Christmas market attack

BERLIN: The German government pledged on Sunday to fully investigate whether there were security lapses before the Christmas market car-ramming attack that killed five people and injured over 200.

Political pressure has built on the question of potential missed warnings about Saudi suspect Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old psychiatrist who had made online deaths threats and previously had trouble with the law.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and the heads of Germany´s domestic and foreign intelligence services are due to answer questions at parliamentary committee hearings on December 30, a senior lawmaker told AFP.

Faeser vowed on Sunday that “no stone will be left unturned” in shedding light on what information had been available to security services ahead of last Friday´s bloody attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg. She stressed that the attacker did “not fit any previous pattern” because “he acted like a terrorist although ideologically he was clearly an enemy of Islam”.

Abdulmohsen has in the past called himself a “Saudi atheist” who helped women flee Gulf countries and charged Germany was doing too little to help them.

In online posts, he also strongly criticised Germany for allowing in too many Muslim refugees and backed far-right conspiracy theories about the “Islamisation” of Europe.