(ANSA-AFP) - MAGDEBURG, DEC 21 - German police arrested a
Saudi Arabian man after a deadly car-ramming attack on a
Christmas market Friday in which an SUV barrelled through a
crowd of revellers at high speed, leaving a trail of bloody
carnage. At least two people were killed, one of them a young
child, and 68 injured, said authorities in the city of
Magdeburg, located about 130 kilometres (80 miles) southwest of
Berlin. The suspect was a 50-year-old medical doctor from Saudi
Arabia living in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, said
regional premier Reiner Haseloff, speaking at a scene cordoned
off and guarded by police commandos. "We have arrested the
perpetrator, a man from Saudi Arabia, a doctor who has been in
Germany since 2006," he told reporters, calling the attack a
"catastrophe" for the city and the country. "From what we
currently know he was a lone attacker so we don't think there is
any further danger." German media partially named the suspect as
Taleb A. and said he was a doctor of psychiatry. The black BMW
barrelled through the crowd at high speed just after 7:00 pm
local time (1800 GMT) when the market was filled with revellers.
Video footage showed the driver's arrest as police with their
handguns trained shouted "lie down, hands on your back, don't
move!" at the bearded man with glasses who was lying on the
ground next to the heavily damaged car. Police said the vehicle
drove "at least 400 metres across the Christmas market" leaving
a trail of bloodied casualties, debris and broken glass at the
city's central town hall square. (ANSA-AFP).
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