Christmas market killer ‘is a closet jihadist and undercover Islamist’, AfD claim – as it’s revealed he left behind a will and expected to die in ‘suicide mission’

The Christmas market killer ‘is a secret jihadist and undercover Islamist’, claims the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD, spoke yesterday at a mass meeting outside the cathedral in Magdeburg, near where Saudi doctor Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, smashed his rented SUV into the Christmas market crowd on Friday.

Nine-year-old André Gleißner was killed and at least 235 people were injured in the horrific rampage, dozens of whom authorities say remain in serious condition.

Weidel embraced the conspiracy theory that the attacker had been a secret jihadist, describing the murder as “a crime beyond the imagination of anyone here; a crime by an Islamist full of hatred for everything that makes us human, for us as a people, for us as Germans, for us as Christians.’

AfD figures and supporters have spread a baseless theory that Abdulmohsen was a secret Islamist who hid his beliefs under a centuries-old doctrine called taqiyyah, which holds that Muslims can hide their beliefs in non-Islamic societies.

Police are still wondering why Abdulmohsen attacked the market, the prosecutor indicated that the medic’s complaint about Germany’s treatment of Saudi dissident asylum seekers could be a possible motive.

Abdulmohsen – who was arrested next to the battered vehicle – has expressed anti-Islam views, anger at German immigration officials including former Chancellor Angela Merkel, and support for far-right narratives about the “Islamization” of Europe.

Weidel’s comments come after German magazine Spiegel revealed that Abdulmohsen had left a will in his rental car, indicating he expected to die during his rampage after repeatedly promising on social media that he would die “this year.”

Abdulmohsen reportedly donated his entire fortune to the German Red Cross, but he did not include any political message in the document.

He was remanded in custody on five counts of murder and several attempted murders, and of causing grievous bodily harm, prosecutors said Saturday evening, but so far not on any terrorism-related charges.

The 50-year-old is currently being held in a high-security prison near Magdeburg, where he is constantly monitored by cameras and made to wear paper clothes “so he doesn’t hang himself in his cell,” according to tabloid Bild.

Weidel told the meeting last night that “Germany must provide safety to those who are persecuted, but send away those at the border who abuse our hospitality and despise our values.”

This was responded to by the crowd with chants of ‘deportation, deportation’ and ‘those who don’t love Germany must leave Germany’.

She added: “We want something to finally change in our country, to finally live in safety again, to never have to grieve again with a mother who had to lose her son in such a terrible and brutal way .’

Weidel called for a “time of reckoning” after saying on X that the attack in Magdeburg “would not have been possible without uncontrolled immigration.”

Weidel, whose party is polling around 20 percent but is shunned as a pariah by all other mainstream parties, added: “The state must protect citizens through restrictive migration policies and consistent deportations.”

Bild wrote that “although the background to the terrible attack in Magdeburg has not yet been clarified, it is already clear: there will be a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ in this election campaign.”

It said “the attack changes everything” and will refocus the campaign, which has so far focused on Germany’s poor economic situation, on “whom the people trust to make our homeland safe again.”

The massacre has moved the focal points of security and immigration back to the center of politics ahead of Germany’s snap elections on February 23.

Also speaking at the meeting last night, Magdeburg-born AfD politician Oliver Kirchner said: ‘Diversity has become a synonym for ‘stay at home if you want to live longer’.

‘We protect our Christmas markets as if they were borders during the Cold War, but leave our borders open to everyone.

‘Authorities who ignored every warning from the secret services, who do not deport anyone, even when the death of Germans is threatened. According to the BKA and LKA, there was no concrete threat from the suspect in 2023.

‘The mistake is not that there are no posts, but that we need posts at all. When is it enough? Aren’t five dead, more than forty seriously injured and more than two hundred injured more than enough? […] Never again, now.

‘Here the Ministry of the Interior failed because it did not take several warnings from a Saudi Arabian secret service seriously. The AfD is not to blame; the current government and the Ministry of the Interior here in Saxony-Anhalt (German state) are to blame.’

Emotions ran high this weekend after it emerged that police had been warned about the ‘unstable’ Abdulmohsen in September last year, but did nothing other than take screenshots of his twisted online threats.

While the German media delved into Abdulmohsen’s past and investigators revealed little, criticism poured in from the far-right and far-left parties that were already strongly opposed to the government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Saudi suspect, psychiatrist and anti-Islam activist Abdulmohsen had made death threats against German citizens online and had a history of feuding with state authorities.

News magazine Der Spiegel said, citing security sources, that the Saudi secret service had warned the German spy agency BND a year ago about a tweet in which Abdulmohsen threatened that Germany would pay a “price” for the treatment of Saudi refugees.

A source close to the government told AFP on Monday that Saudi Arabia had previously requested Abdulmohsen’s extradition.

“There was a (extradition) request,” the source said, without giving the reason for the request, adding that Riyadh had warned he “could be dangerous.” Saudi Arabia is said to have warned Germany ‘many times’ about Abdulmohsen.

Abdulmohsen, who portrayed himself as a victim of persecution and had renounced Islam, arrived in Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status a decade later, according to German media and a Saudi activist.

The doctor often denounced what he believed was the Islamization of Germany.

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, please let me know.”

In a post from December last year, he wrote: ‘Germany is the only country – apart from Saudi Arabia – that pursues female Saudi asylum seekers around the world to destroy their lives.

‘Vengeance will come soon. Even if it costs me my life. I will make the German nation pay the price for the crimes committed by the government against Saudi refugees.”