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As we previously reported, a GoFundMe page was set up to collect donations for the family of nine-year-old victim, Andre Gleissner.
The page, set up by a family friend, was initially closed for donations after almost €50,000 was raised.
But the organizer in a new update reported that it had reopened the donation page 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 has now 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?
The questions come after it was revealed Taleb A, as he’s being called by German media, had been flagged to authorities before.
Read from our Europe correspondent Siobhan Robbins below. . .
Heavily armed police will patrol the site of Friday’s attack.
A cordon remains around the site as investigations continue.
Two days after the deadly attack, debris remains strewn across the scene in Magdeburg,
Police are monitoring the Christmas market, where a car plowed into a crowd celebrating the Christmas holidays 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 brought by the paramedics are placed in a garbage bag.
Some belongings were left behind by market visitors, including a single black child’s glove and a beige hiking shoe.
A bloody handkerchief thrown to 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 was “not a stranger” and “had undergone this radicalization 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 were betrayed, in his own words,” Roehn said.
“He talked about maybe dying this year, he talked about taking revenge.
“It’s shocking to see what this user said publicly before this attack happened. ”
Roehn said his team also discovered a “strange email” sent to Berlin police warning about Taleb A.
The person who sent the email was from Saudi Arabia and had warned the suspect was an “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 German federal police investigated Taleb A a few months ago and pursued him.
However, they later decided he was not a threat and “left him alone”.
Two local fire brigades have paid tribute to Andre Gleissner, the nine-year-old killed in the attack.
The Schöppenstedt fire department said Andre was a member of the children’s fire brigade in Warle.
He said the nine-year-old “left us too soon. ”
“Our thoughts are with Andrés’ relatives, who we also want to support during this difficult time,” it said, sharing a donation appeal.
The young firefighters of 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 them in these difficult times and express our deepest sympathy. “
A German official has said police previously had contact with the suspect accused of driving into crowds at a Christmas market and killing five people.
Christian Pegel, interior minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, said the government’s data was valid on the suspect, identified in German media as Taleb A.
The 50-year-old, whose surname is being withheld due to German laws, spent time in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 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 other people died in the 2013 attack when two homemade pressure cooker bombs exploded at the marathon finish 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 anything that “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. ”
He then took a position with the suspect in a conversation 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.
A Saudi doctor reportedly drove his car into a busy Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg on Friday night.
Four women and a nine-year-old child were killed and two hundred others were injured.
Here’s what we know about what happened.
How did the attack unfold?
Shortly after 7pm, a dark-coloured BMW hire car barrelled into crowds gathered at the Magdeburg Christmas market.
Witnesses said they saw the car hurtle towards people near the city hall, driving in a zig-zag for about 400m.
Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, who works in a lounge near the market, said he was on the phone during a break when he heard a loud boom that he at first thought was fireworks.
Then he saw a car speeding across the market.
People screamed and a child was thrown into the air through the vehicle, he said.
The 34-year-old recalls seeing the car leave the market, turn right onto Ernst-Reuter-Allee and then stop at a tram stop where the suspect was arrested.
Who are the victims?
Police said the victims were four women, ages 45, 52, 67 and 75, and a nine-year-old boy named Andre Gleissner.
Another two hundred people were injured and 41 are believed to be in serious condition.
They are 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, from Saudi Arabia, is being investigated for murder, manslaughter and assault.
Social media posts shared through the suspect describe him as a former Muslim.
He has shared anti-Muslim views and was highly critical of German authorities, voicing 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 costs me dearly. I’m horrified that something like this could happen,” he said.
Ms Schroete said it “makes no sense at all” how the attack could have been carried out despite the introduction of bollards and safety precautions.
Another mourner, Michael Klippel, said: ‘I think it’s really, really, really bad. Our daughter sent me this message on Friday evening and I thought she was here too.
“I was shocked. He was exhausted. He was devastated. It is incomprehensible. It is incomprehensible. ”