German police arrested a Saudi Arabian man after a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market on 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 130km (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.”
A Saudi source said the kingdom had warned German authorities about the attacker, who the source said had posted extremist views on his personal X account.