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A Saudi doctor has been sentenced for killing six people and injuring hundreds when he rammed a rented BMW into crowds at a historic market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg days before Christmas in 2024.
He was sentenced to life in prison on Friday, June 26, 2026.
The defendant, identified as Taleb A. in accordance with German privacy laws, was a psychiatrist originally from Saudi Arabia described by officials as having a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric and far-right sympathies.
Prosecutors had charged him with murdering six people and the attempted murder of hundreds more in an attack they say lasted one minute and four seconds and was planned over several weeks.
Five women between the ages of 45-75 and a nine-year-old boy were killed.
The defendant appears to have acted out of dissatisfaction and frustration regarding the outcome of a civil law dispute and his lack of success in various criminal complaints, prosecutors have said.
The attack shocked the country and stirred up tensions over the charged issue of immigration, months before a general election that was held in February 2025.
