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As we reported earlier, a GoFundMe page has been set up to raise donations for the family of nine-year-old victim Andre Gleissner.
The page, created through a circle of family and friends, was first closed to donations after nearly 50,000 euros were raised.
But the organiser has said in a new update that they have reopened the page for donations after receiving a flood of requests from the public.
They said Andre’s family plans to donate a large portion of the donations to other victims who were killed or injured in the attack.
More than 70,000 euros have already been raised.
After the carnage at the Magdeburg Christmas market, there are now questions about whether something was missed.
Could they have arrested the man accused of killing five other people and injuring more than two hundred others?
These questions arise after it was revealed that Taleb A, as he is known in the German media, had already been reported to the authorities.
Read from our Europe correspondent Siobhan Robbins below. . .
Heavily armed police will patrol the site of Friday’s attack.
A cordon is maintained around it while investigations continue.
Two days after the deadly attack, debris remains strewn across the scene in Magdeburg,
Police officers monitor the Christmas market area, where a car plowed into a crowd celebrating the festive season on Friday night.
A damaged bar table still lies in front of the concrete barricades, next to a torn wrapper from a syringe and a fan.
The unused tension bandages that the paramedics brought are placed in a garbage bag.
Some belongings have been left behind by those at the market, including a single black children’s glove and a beige hiking shoe.
A bloodied tissue is discarded on the ground.
A German investigative journalist said there were “a number of warnings” about suspect Taleb A before he killed five other people in this week’s attack.
Tim Roehn, Welt’s head of investigations, told Sky News that the suspect is “not a stranger” and “had undergone this radicalisation in plain sight”.
He said the alleged attacker had “gained some popularity as a critic of Islam” and an opponent of the Saudi regime, and had given interviews to mainstream media.
“Among all those statements, there are repeated messages that Germany would pay an enormous price because he and other secular Arabs have been betrayed, in his own words,” Roehn said.
“He talked about dying this year, he talked about getting revenge.
“It is quite shocking to see what this person had said publicly before this attack happened.”
Roehn said his team also discovered a “strange email” addressed to Berlin police, warning about Taleb A.
The user who sent the email from Saudi Arabia had warned the suspect that he was in “imminent danger,” the journalist said.
They had provided the police with their phone number and address, however, the email did not reach the police in Berlin, the German capital, but was mistakenly sent to a small town called Berlin, New Jersey Array in the United States.
It is unclear whether the email was forwarded to the German government or not.
Sky News has not noted the email and cannot independently determine the main details about it.
Roehn said the German federal police investigated Taleb A a few months ago and pursued him.
However, they later said it wasn’t a risk and “left it alone. ”
Two firefighters paid tribute to André Gleissner, the nine-year-old boy who died in the attack.
The Schöppenstedt chimney brigade reported that Andre is a member of the children’s chimney brigade in Warle.
It said the nine-year-old “left us much too soon”.
“Our minds are with Andrés’ loved ones, whom we also want to help in this difficult time,” he said, sharing an appeal for donations.
Young firefighters from Lower Saxony also paid tribute to André saying: “Our deepest condolences go out to his family, his friends and all his loved ones.
“We stand by their side in these difficult times and express our deepest sympathy.”
A German official said police had already had contact with the suspect accused of attacking crowds at a Christmas market and killing people.
Christian Pegel, interior minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, said the government’s data was valid about the suspect, identified in German media as Taleb A.
The 50-year-old, whose last trip is withheld under German law, stayed in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania between 2011 and January 2016.
Pegel said it was probably part of his education as a medical specialist.
They then detailed two incidents in which the suspect had contact with police.
Suspect ‘made reference to Boston Marathon bombing’
In April 2023, Taleb A was charged with “disturbing public order by threatening to commit criminal acts”.
Pegel said it was probably “in the context of a dispute with the Chamber of Physicians” but that the suspect had “threatened to do anything that might attract foreign attention” and referred to the Boston Marathon bombing.
Three people were killed in the 2013 attack when two homemade pressure-cooker bombs were detonated at the marathon’s finishing line.
An arrest warrant was issued to search Taleb A’s apartment, but “no evidence of any kind involving actual agreements to commit such an act nor any evidence of Islamist tendencies has been discovered. ”
The doctor said he would do whatever “people do for a long time. “
In a separate incident the following year, the suspect contacted a public authority in Stralsund asking for financial support for his living costs.
Mr Pegel said: “The data we have is that in seeking to obtain this funding, in trying to obtain his application, he said that he would take steps that would attract foreign attention and that other people would not forget for a long time. ”
A position was then taken with the suspect in a discussion about radicalization screening, which is used when police are surveilling a user who possibly poses a potential risk.
He then said the government would be watching him, Pegel said.
On Friday night, a Saudi doctor allegedly drove his car into a busy Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg.
Four women and a nine-year-old boy were killed and 200 people were injured.
Here’s what we know about what happened.
How did the attack unfold?
Shortly after 7 p. m. , a dark-colored rental BMW drove through the crowds that had gathered at the Magdeburg Christmas market.
Witnesses said they saw the car racing towards other people near the town hall, traveling in a zigzag pattern for about 400m.
Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, who works at a salon near the market, said she was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs that she thought were fireworks at first.
Then he saw a car driving through the market at full speed.
People screamed and a child was thrown into the air through the vehicle, he said.
The 34-year-old remembers seeing the car leave the market and turn right onto Ernst-Reuter-Allee, then stop at a tram stop where the suspect was arrested.
Who are the victims?
Police have confirmed those killed were four women, aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, and a nine-year-old boy, who has been named as Andre Gleissner.
Another two hundred people were injured and 41 are believed to be in serious condition.
They are located in several hospitals in Magdeburg.
Who is the suspect?
Several German media outlets identified the suspect as Taleb A, 50, and revealed his last name, in accordance with German privacy laws.
He said he is a doctor specializing in psychiatry and psychotherapy and has lived in Germany since 2006.
The suspect, originally from Saudi Arabia, is under investigation on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and bodily harm.
Social media posts shared through the suspect describe him as a former Muslim.
He has anti-Muslim views and has been highly critical of German authorities, expressing support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
People came here to pay their respects to those killed in this week’s attack in Magdeburg.
Among those who paid tribute, Constanze Schroete said she was “deeply shocked. ”
“It’s taken its toll on me. I’m horrified that something like this can happen,” she said.
Schroete said it “doesn’t make sense” how the attack could have been carried out despite the arrival of bollards and security measures.
Another mourner, Michael Klippel, said: “I think it’s bad. Our daughter sent me this message on Friday night and I thought she was there too.
“I was shocked. He was exhausted. He was devastated. It is incomprehensible. It is incomprehensible. ”