Thousands of people have gathered in Germany to voice their fury over the Christmas market massacre in Magdeburg.
Members of the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) could be seen holding a rally near the site of the car-ramming attack.
A memorial event and funeral march also took place, after it was confirmed that four adults and a nine-year-old child were killed after a car rammed into a crowd of shoppers at around 7pm on December 20.
At least 205 people have also been injured during the massacre, while the suspect, a 50-year-old Saudi doctor, has since been arrested.
Speaking at the rally, AfD politician Oliver Kirchner, who was born in Magdeburg, said: ‘Diversity has become a synonym for “stay at home if you want to live longer”.
‘We protect our Christmas markets as if they were borders during the Cold War, but leave our borders open for everyone.
‘Authorities which have ignored every warning from secret services, that don’t deport anyone, not even when the killing of Germans is threatened. The BKA and LKA say in 2023 there was no concrete threat posed by the suspect.
‘The error is not the missing of bollards, the error is that we need bollards at all.
Thousands of people have gathered in Germany to voice their fury over the Christmas market massacre
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) speaks during a rallu
A memorial event and funeral march also took place, after it was confirmed that four adults and a nine-year-old child were killed
‘When is it enough? Are five deaths, more than 40 seriously injured and more than 200 injured not more than enough? […] Never again is now.
‘Here the interior ministry has failed because it didn’t take several warnings from a Saudi Arabian secret service seriously.
‘Not the afd is at fault – the current government and the interior ministry here in in Saxen Anhalt (German state) is at fault.’
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD, also said: ‘Germany should provide safety for those that are persecuted but should turn those away at the border who take advantage of our hospitality and despise our values.’
This was met with chants of ‘deportation, deportation’ and ‘who doesn’t love Germany, should leave Germany’ by the crowd.
She added: ‘We want that something finally changes in our country, that we can finally live in safety again, that we don’t ever have to mourn with a mother again who had to lose her son in such terrible and brutal way.’
On Saturday it was revealed that the Saudi doctor who killed the five people by ploughing his BMW into a Christmas market vowed to slaughter ’20 Germans’ last year.
German police were warned about ‘unstable’ Dr Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen in September last year, but did nothing more than take screenshots of his twisted online threats.
Police officers stand as people attend a commemoration organised by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party at the cathedral square
A placard reads ‘sick of seeing people killed’, after the Christmas market car-ramming attack
At least 205 people have also been injured during the massacre, while the suspect, a 50-year-old Saudi doctor, has since been arrested
People carry candles attending an AfD election campaign in front of the cathedral in Magdeburg
Footage showed scenes of horror with the car cutting through families who barely had time to turn their heads.
A woman reported his online threat, made in Arabic, to Berlin police, as well as the German migration authorities. But no action was taken. Last night she said Al-Abdulmohsen ‘openly threatened the lives of Germans but police didn’t arrest him or take any action. This could have been prevented if the police had done their job properly.’
Al-Abdulmohsen had bypassed security bollards and used an emergency corridor – which should have been blocked for anything other than ambulances and police vehicles – to enter the market.
He launched his attack just after 7pm local time in Germany, as thousands of shoppers gathered at the centre of Magdeburg.
Driving slowly at first, the blue SUV turned in to an alleyway where hundreds of shoppers were browsing stalls and sipping mulled wine.
He then pointed his vehicle directly at the crowd and ploughed forward. As shoppers fled in panic, the driver turned another corner and drove out of the market. An off-duty policeman pursued the BMW until he came to a halt outside Magdeburg shopping centre, where he was arrested at gunpoint by armed officers.
As the five deaths were confirmed in a sombre press conference, details emerged of the youngest victim, who was nine, and was out shopping with his mother.
His mother posted a poignant message for her son. She said: ‘Let my little teddy bear fly around the world again… [my son] hadn’t done anything to anyone… he was only with us on Earth for nine years… why you… why?’
People take part in a memorial event and funeral march
A police officer stands as a bike rides by with a flag of Germany during a commemoration
The attack was launched just after 7pm local time in Germany, as thousands of shoppers gathered at the centre of Magdeburg
Three days after the Magdeburg Christmas market car-ramming attack, both the far-right AfD party and counter-protesters were due to hit the streets in the bereaved city
The boy was a member of the local youth fire brigade club. It posted: ‘We are particularly saddened by the loss of such a young life from our own ranks.’
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who visited the site of the attack, said that he was ‘very worried for the 40’ said to be critically ill.
There were also questions as to how another attack on a Christmas market was allowed to happen, eight years after the atrocity at the Breitscheidplatz market in Berlin, which left 13 dead and 70 injured. Experts were also dismayed at how police and intelligence services missed warning signs.
Al-Abdulmohsen was a high-profile Saudi ex-Muslim who openly made his threats on social media where he endorsed far-Right leaders such as Britain’s Tommy Robinson.
His warning of a killing spree last year followed a dispute with a German refuge for atheist asylum seekers. He claimed staff there sexually assaulted a number of Saudi women.
In a tweet he said: ‘Would you blame me if I randomly killed 20 Germans because of what Germany is doing against the Saudis?’
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