The suspect who drove into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, last December has sent letters to the victims asking for “forgiveness.” Six people were killed and more than three hundred injured in the attack.
A spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor’s Office (OM) in the state of Saxony-Anhalt confirms to The Guardian that the suspect has sent letters to at least five people who were injured in the attack.
Local German media write that the fifty-year-old Saudi doctor asked them for “forgiveness” and wished them a speedy recovery, but that in his letters he also made “confused” tirades about Saudi asylum seekers. He also asked the victims to visit him or respond to his letter by letter. He reportedly signed the letter “with kind regards.”
One of the recipients tells the Magdeburger Volkstimme that he “initially couldn’t believe” that the letter had been sent. He added that the letter had evoked terrible memories of the night of the attack. Another says: “We were shocked when we returned from vacation and found the letter in our mailbox. How can a murderer get the addresses of the survivors?”
It is unclear how the suspect obtained the addresses. He may have seen them in the files about the investigation, which his lawyers have. The Public Prosecution Service is said to have allowed him to send the letters and had included a warning in them for the recipients, so that “they could decide for themselves whether they wanted to read it.”
Public Prosecution Service adjusts policy regarding letters
The Public Prosecution Service now says that letters from the suspect will be withheld. “Victims will be informed (by telephone) that he has written,” the Public Prosecution Service says. They can then decide for themselves whether or not they want to receive the letter.
The suspect drove into a Christmas market in Magdeburg on December 20. Six people, including a child, were killed. The man was arrested on the spot by the police. The investigation into the attack revealed that the man may have a mental disorder.
In the period before the attack, the man expressed strong anti-Islamic views in several online messages. He criticized the way the German government was dealing with Saudi refugees and expressed support for far-right conspiracy theories about the ‘Islamization’ of Europe.