German court hands life term to Christmas market car attacker

MAGDEBURG, Germany (AFP) — 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.

He was convicted of six counts of murder and 338 counts of attempted murder by the court in the eastern city of Magdeburg.

Judges also found there was an “especially severe culpability” — a ruling usually reserved for the most vile, cruel or morally reprehensible crimes.

German prisoners serving life sentences can apply for parole after 15 years — but this designation makes release much less likely.

During the monthslong trial, Abdulmohsen admitted to driving the vehicle — a BMW X3 compact SUV with over 340 horsepower — through the crowd on Dec. 20, 2024, but denied deliberately running people over.

The court described that claim as preposterous.

The presiding judge, Dirk Sternberg, said Abdulmohsen had plotted the attack for more than a year and walked through the market about 10 times before to memorize the route of his attack.

Sternberg recounted how the attacker drove across the Christmas market at speeds of up to 30 mph with the “accelerator fully pressed,” weaving in a zigzag pattern to strike as many people as possible.

The judge began the reading of the verdict with the names of those killed: A 9-year-old boy and five women aged between 45 and 75.

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.

‘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 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 Inge Bormann, 59, whose best friend was among those killed.

“My whole life was changed completely, in the blink of an eye,” she told AFP. “All the paths we walked together over 30 years are simply gone.”

Her friend’s death in the rampage has left “a profound void for me,” Bormann said. “Of course, I wish every day that she would come back, though that won’t happen.”

Abdulmohsen’s lack of remorse “of course” made her angry — but “personally, I wouldn’t have wanted an apology, because the act he committed is something that cannot be excused.”

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.

Sternberg, the judge, said that Abdulmohsen acted from a “cluster of motives” in the attack.

He “wanted revenge on the German population” for a range of grievances, Sternberg said, and he was also bitter over a conflict with a Cologne-based refugee organization against which he had lost a civil suit and wanted public attention.

Lead prosecutor Matthias Boettcher had noted during closing arguments that Abdulmohsen throughout the trial had showed “no remorse, regret or introspection whatsoever.”

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By Agence France-Presse