The Saudis say warnings about a suspected market attack were ignored

I’m told Saudi authorities are now working to gather everything they have about Magdeburg market suspect Taleb al-Abdulmohsen and share it with Germany’s ongoing investigation “in every possible way.”

Inside the grand, fortress-like, sand-colored walls of the Saudi Foreign Ministry in Riyadh, there is a perhaps justified sense of exasperation.

The ministry had previously warned the German government about al-Abdulmohsen’s extremist views.

He sent four so-called “notes verbales,” three to the German intelligence service and one to the Foreign Office in Berlin. The Saudis say there was no response.

This is partly due to the fact that Taleb al-Abdulmohsen Germany granted asylum in 2016, a year after Former Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the borders of her country to let through more than a million migrants from the Middle East and 10 years after al-Abdulmohsen settled in Germany.

Coming from a country where Islam is the only religion allowed to be practiced in public, al-Abdulmohsen was a very unusual citizen.

He turned away from Islam, making himself a heretic in the eyes of many.

He was born in the Saudi city of Hofuf in an oasis of date palms in 1974. Little is known about his early life before he decided to leave Saudi Arabia and move to Europe at the age of 32.

Active on social media, on his Twitter account (later X), he identifies himself as a psychiatrist and founder of the Saudi rights movement, along with the tag @SaudiExMuslims.

He founded a website that helps Saudi women flee the country to Europe.

The Saudis say he was a trafficker, and Interior Ministry investigators, Mabaatheth, are said to have a big case on him.

In recent years, there have been reports of Saudi dissidents being put under hostile surveillance by Saudi government agents in Canada, the United States, and Germany.

There is no doubt that German authorities, both federal and state, made serious mistakes in the al-Abdulmohsen case.

Whatever the reasons for not responding, as the Saudis claim, to repeated warnings about his extremism, he appeared to pose a danger to the country that had taken him in.

In particular, he failed to block or at least secure the emergency access road to the Magdeburg Alter Markt, which allowed him to allegedly drive his BMW into the crowd.

German authorities have defended the layout of the market and said the investigation into the suspect’s past is ongoing.

But a complicating factor is that Saudi Arabia, while considered a friend and ally of the West, has a poor human rights record.

Until June 2018 Saudi women banned from driving and even those women who have publicly called for the repeal of this ban have still been persecuted and imprisoned.

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who is only 30 years old, is extremely popular in his country.

While Western leaders have largely distanced themselves from him following his alleged involvement in the horrific The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi inwhich the crown prince denies, at home his star is still on the rise.

Under his de facto rule, public life in Saudi Arabia has changed for the better, with men and women allowed to associate freely, cinemas reopening, and major sporting and entertainment spectacles, even concerts featuring Western artists such as David Guetta and the Black Eyed Peas.

But there is a paradox here.

While public life in Saudi Arabia has flourished, there has been a simultaneous crackdown on anything even hinting at greater political or religious freedom.

Harsh sentences of 10 years or more have been handed down for simple tweets.

No one is allowed to even question the way the country is run.

Against this background, Germany seems to have dropped the ball to Taleb al-Abdulmohsen.