The perpetrator shows a secret messageActing out of frustration: Prosecutor explains shooting in Magdeburg in detail
Shortly before Christmas last year, Taleb A. crashed his vehicle into a crowd of people at the Magdeburg Christmas market. Six people died. At the start of the trial, the prosecutor explained in detail the perpetrator’s motives.
The trial surrounding the Magdeburg Christmas market attack that killed six people almost a year ago began with the reading of the indictment. Defendant Taleb A. acted with the intention to “kill many people indefinitely,” said senior public prosecutor Matthias Böttcher at the start of the trial at the Magdeburg regional court.
On December 20, 2024, A. directed his two-ton, 340 hp car “targeted at a large number of passers-by”, killing six people and injuring more than 300, some of them life-threatening. Because of his “personal frustration,” the defendant wanted to arrest “as many people as possible.” To do this, he drives in winding paths to meet as many people as possible. He essentially acted “out of hurt and frustration” over the outcome of the court case and the failure of his own criminal prosecution. Böttcher said he arbitrarily sought victims to draw attention to “the injustice he felt.”
The two representatives of the Naumburg Public Prosecutor’s Office explained in detail the course of the crime in December and described how the defendant hit people with his car, dragged and ran over them. The prosecutor explains each case – the injuries the victim suffered, the length of hospital stay, how the person died.
The defendant reacted without emotion
The 51 year old defendant apparently followed the prosecutor’s presentation without emotion from the dock in a cabin made of safety glass. The specialist has lived in Germany since 2006 and most recently worked with addicted criminals in Bernburg, Saxony-Anhalt.
The defendant held out a laptop to the photographer with “#MagdeburgGate” and “September 2026” written on the screen. What this means is unknown. Without moving, the man with a long, graying beard then watched the indictment read out in his glass box.
A. was charged with, among other things, six counts of murder and attempted murder in 338 cases. According to prosecutors, the defendant, who is from Saudi Arabia, killed a nine-year-old boy and five women aged between 45 and 75 in an attack on a busy Christmas market in Magdeburg. 309 people were injured, of which 29 affected remained physically unharmed. However, the charges against them were also based on attempted murder.
The process takes place under strict security measures. Due to the large number of people involved in the trial and media representation, the regional court rented a light room for the trial. However, many of the seats for the more than 150 alleged plaintiffs remained empty at the start of the trial, and the rows of spectators were only half full. Initially, the negotiation date was set until March.
