Murder trial of suspect in Christmas market car-ramming attack opens in Germany

BERLIN (AP) — A Saudi doctor went on trial on murder charges Monday over the car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg last year that left six people dead.

The 51-year-old suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, was brought by helicopter to a temporary courtroom in the eastern city specially set up for the trial, and sat behind a bulletproof glass screen.

Five women and a boy died, and many more people were wounded, in the Dec. 20 attack that lasted just over a minute. The defendant is charged with six counts of murder and 338 of attempted murder in the trial at the Magdeburg state court, for which sessions have been scheduled until March. He could face a life prison sentence if convicted.

Prosecutor Matthias Böttcher told the court that al-Abdulmohsen had acted out of “supposed personal frustration” and aimed to hit as many people as possible in order to gain “the attention he wanted,” German news agency dpa reported.

There are no formal pleas in the German legal system. But the defendant told the court: “I am the one who drove the car.”

He didn’t immediately give further details or offer any apology, dpa reported. Instead, he talked about alleged police cover-ups and criticized the media, and the presiding judge admonished him to address the matter at hand.

Investigators have said that the attack was carried out with a rented BMW X3, which reached speeds of up to 48 kph (30 mph) during the rampage. They said when they filed the indictment that he wasn’t under the influence of alcohol and apparently acted out of dissatisfaction with the outcome of a legal dispute and the failure of various criminal complaints. They also have said that he planned the attack without accomplices.

Officials have said the suspect doesn’t fit the usual profile of perpetrators of extremist attacks. The man described himself as an ex-Muslim who was highly critical of Islam and on social media expressed support for the far-right. He had previously come to authorities’ attention for threatening behavior but wasn’t known to have committed any violence.

The Magdeburg car-ramming was one of a series of attacks involving immigrants that pushed migration to the forefront of the campaign for Germany’s national election in February. The defendant arrived in Germany in 2006 and had received permanent residency.