Taleb al-Abdulmohsen accused of murdering six and attempting to kill hundreds in Magdeburg last December
A man has gone on trial in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on charges of murdering six people and attempting to murder hundreds more by deliberately ploughing his SUV into a packed Christmas market last December.
Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 51, a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia, appeared in court on Monday wearing handcuffs and with his feet shackled, accompanied by armed police. He will be held in a bullet-proof glass case throughout the trial.
In a lengthy indictment read out over several hours, the chief public prosecutor, Matthias Böttcher, said the defendant had acted “with the intention of killing an indeterminately large number of people”, when, on 20 December 2024, he “deliberately drove his 2-tonne, 340-horsepower car into a large number of pedestrians”.
In what Böttcher described as a carefully planned attack that took place between 7.02pm and 7.04pm, the majority of deaths occurred within a few seconds.
