The far-Right Alternative for Germany party has claimed the Magdeburg Christmas market killer is “a closet jihadist and undercover Islamist” despite his avowed anti-Muslim views.
Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the AfD, made the claims at a mass rally outside the cathedral in Magdeburg, near where Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, a Saudi psychiatrist, ploughed his rented SUV into the crowd at the Christmas market on Friday.
Five people, including nine-year-old André Gleißner, were killed, and at least 235 people were injured in the attack, dozens seriously, according to authorities.
The youngest person killed in the market attack was nine-year-old André Gleißner, pictured in a photo posted on Facebook by his mother – Facebook
At the rally on Monday, Ms Weidel relayed a conspiracy theory that the attacker had been a closet jihadist and was hiding his true Islamist intentions through taqiyyah, an Arabic term meaning that Muslims can hide their beliefs in non-Islamic societies.
She described the attack as “a crime beyond the imagination of everyone here; a crime by an Islamist full of hatred against everything that makes us human, against us as people, against us as Germans, against us as Christians”.
Police are still attempting to determine Abdulmohsen’s motives, with the prosecutor indicating that the doctor’s grievance about how Germany was treating Saudi dissident asylum seekers could have prompted him to act.
Abdulmohsen – who was arrested beside the battered vehicle – has previously voiced anti-Islam views, anger at German immigration officials including Angela Merkel, the former chancellor, and support for far-Right narratives on the “Islamisation” of Europe.
He has lived in Germany since 2006.
Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the AfD, at the rally where she relayed claims that the killer was a secret jihadist – Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo
Ms Weidel’s comments came as Spiegel, a German magazine, revealed Abdulmohsen left a will in his rental car, indicating that he expected to die during his attack on the market. He had vowed repeatedly on social media that he would die “this year”.
Abdulmohsen reportedly willed his entire estate to the German Red Cross, but did not include any political messages in the document.
He has been remanded in custody on five counts of murder and several counts of attempted murder as well as causing grievous bodily harm, prosecutors said on Saturday night. He is not facing any terrorism-related charges at this stage.
Taleb al-Abdulmohsen was arrested alongside the badly damaged BMW used in the attack, pictured being examined by forensic teams – Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP
Ms Weidel said at the rally: “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.
The Christmas market attack has supercharged the flashpoint issues of security and immigration ahead of Germany’s Feb 23 snap elections.
