They will be quizzed about possible missed clues and security failures before the December 20
\n BERLIN
\nGerman security and intelligence chiefs are due on Monday to face questioning about the car-ramming attack that killed five people and wounded more than 200 at a Christmas market 10 days ago.
\nThey will be quizzed about possible missed clues and security failures before the December 20 attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg, where police arrested the 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen at the scene.
\nInterior Minister Nancy Faeser, Saxony-Anhalt state officials, and the heads of Germany\u2019s domestic and foreign intelligence services are expected to face a closed-door committee hearing in parliament from 1200 GMT.
\nAbdulmohsen is the only suspect in the attack in which a rented BMW sport utility vehicle plowed through the crowd of revelers at high speed, leaving a trail of bloody carnage.
\nInvestigators have yet to declare a suspected motive in the assault that used a motor vehicle as a weapon, which recalled past jihadist attacks, including in Berlin and in the French city of Nice in 2016.
\nAbdulmohsen, by contrast, has voiced strongly anti-Islam views, sympathies with the far right, and anger at Germany for allowing in too many Muslim war refugees and other asylum-seekers.
\nAccording to unconfirmed media reports citing unnamed German security sources, he has in the past been treated for mental illness and tested positive for drug use on the night of his arrest.
\nThe Saudi suspect has been remanded in custody in a top-security facility on five counts of murder and 205 counts of attempted murder, prosecutors said, but not so far on terrorism-related charges.
\nChancellor Olaf Scholz, who faces elections in February, has declared that Germany needs to \u201cinvestigate whether this terrible act could have been prevented.\u201d
\n\u201cNo stone must be left unturned,\u201d he told news portal t-online on Friday, echoing similar comments by Faeser.
\nScholz said that \u201cover the years, there have been repeated clues\u201d about the suspect, adding that \u201cwe must examine very carefully whether there were any failings on the part of the authorities in Saxony-Anhalt or at the national level.\u201d
\nGerman media digging through Abdulmohsen\u2019s past and his countless social media postings have found expressions of anger and frustration, and threats of violence against German citizens and politicians.
\nSaudi Arabia said it had repeatedly warned Germany about Abdulmohsen, who came to Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status 10 years later.
\nA source close to the Saudi government told AFP that the kingdom had in the past sought his extradition.
\nGermany has not officially commented on this claim, but would usually deny requests to send people granted asylum back to the country they fled.
\nAbdulmohsen had a history of brushes with the law and court appearances in Germany, media have reported, including for threats of violence.
\nGerman police have said they had contacted Abdulmohsen in September 2023 and October 2024, and then repeatedly tried but failed to meet him again in December.
\nPolice hold such meetings with people deemed a potential threat to make clear they are under close watch and to deter misconduct.
\nAhead of the German elections, the Christmas market bloodshed has reignited fierce debate about immigration and security, after several deadly knife attacks this year blamed on Islamist extremists.
\nThe head of the conservative opposition, Friedrich Merz, wrote that, whether the attacker was a jihadist or an anti-Islam activist, \u201cconflicts are being fought out on German soil… We have to stop this!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They will be quizzed about possible missed clues and security failures before the December 20 BERLIN German security and intelligence chiefs are due on Monday to face questioning about the car-ramming attack that killed five people and wounded more than 200 at a Christmas market 10 days ago. They will be quizzed about possible missed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-452595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n