Magdeburg police said in the early hours of Sunday that the suspect in the Christmas market car attack in the city on Friday night had been issued a warrant for pretrial detention.
Magdeburg’s district court approved an appeal from the city’s public prosecutors in a late-night hearing on Saturday, police said in a statement.
“The arraignment judge ordered investigative detention on suspicion of five cases of homicide, multiple cases of attempted homicide and multiple cases of dangerous bodily harm,” police said.
“The accused was accordingly taken to a place of detention,” the short statement concluded.
The 50-year-old Saudi national, resident in Germany since 2006, was arrested soon after the attack on Friday evening. Roughly 200 people were injured in the attack, some of them severely.
Police: 4 women and 1 boy killed in attack
Police also provided more information on those killed during Friday’s attack.
It said the victims were a 9-year-old boy, and four women, aged 45, 52, 67 and 75. In line with German privacy norms, police did not identify the victims.
A major commemoration was held at the city’s cathedral near the scene of the crime on Saturday evening, attended by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and other German leaders.
German first and second division Bundesliga matches are all holding a minute’s silence at the weekend in commemoration.
Security was also enhanced around Christmas Markets across the country following Friday’s attack, with a heightened police presence visible at most on Saturday.
Most German Christmas markets close on either December 22 or December 23, ahead of the public holidays.
km/msh (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
