Authorities under fire over Christmas market attack

The German government faced growing questions yesterday about whether more could have been done to prevent the Christmas market car-ramming attack that killed five people and injured over 200.

The Saudi suspect, 50-year-old psychiatrist and anti-Islam activist Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, had made online death threats against German citizens and had a history of quarreling with state authorities.

News magazine Der Spiegel, citing security sources, said the Saudi secret service warned Germany's spy agency BND a year ago about a tweet in which Abdulmohsen threatened Germany would pay a "price" for its treatment of Saudi refugees.

And in August Abdulmohsen wrote on social media: "Is there a path to justice in Germany without blowing up a German embassy or randomly slaughtering German citizens?... If anyone knows it, please let me know."

Die Welt daily reported that German state and federal police had carried out a "risk assessment" on Abdulmohsen last year but concluded that he posed "no specific danger."

Emotions have run high, and Magdeburg has been in deep mourning over the mass carnage on Friday evening that left a nine-year-old child among the dead and casualties being treated in 15 regional hospitals.

Of the 205 injured, around 40 were in critical condition, with doctors fighting to save their lives.

In previous brushes with the law, Abdulmohsen was first convicted and fined by a court in the city of Rostock in 2013 for "disturbing the public peace by threatening to commit crimes," according to Der Spiegel.

This year he was investigated in Berlin for the "misuse of emergency calls" after arguing with police at a station in Berlin.

Agence France-Presse