A 50-year-old Saudi Arabian man who rammed a rented SUV into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg last December triggered shock among survivors by writing personal letters to at least five of them asking forgiveness.
The attack in the state of Saxony-Anhalt killed six individuals — one of them a six-year-old child — and injured 323 more.
The perpetrator, Taleb A., is said to have hand written letters that personally addressed victims by name and mailed these to their homes.
What did the letters contain?
Recipients told local and regional news outlets that they felt re-traumatized by the fact that someone they view as a deranged killer would be able to gain access to their names and addresses.
Those who spoke with journalists described the letters as containing confused ramblings. The perpetrator also reiterated warnings about “dangerous Muslim immigrants” similar to those he posted on social media accounts before the attack.
Taleb A. concluded the letters by pushing victims to forgive him as well as asking that they contact him personally before closing with: “friendly regards.”
The letters were written and posted from a Leipzig jail cell on June 8. Taleb A. has since been transferred to a cell in Berlin.
Germany in shock after car rams into Christmas market
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Why were the letters allowed to be sent?
When reporters with public broadcaster MDR contacted the Saxony-Anhalt State Prosecutor’s Office, they were told that there was no way to keep a perpetrator from contacting victims, adding that survivors opened the letters at their own discretion.
Authorities say they are unsure how Taleb A. came to learn the names and addresses but suspect they were copied from documents in the possession of his defense lawyers.
Taleb A. is scheduled to go on trial for the attack though it is uncertain when, since a special courtroom is being built in order to seat the roughly 300 injured in the attack, who will likely join the case against him as co-complainants.
State parliamentarian Rüdiger Erben, who sits on the investigative committee tasked with analyzing the Christmas market attack, voiced shock at the fact that the letters reached victims, and called for authorities to confiscate any similar correspondence in the future.
Erben suggested that if anything, such letters should be addressed to state prosecutors or the legal representatives of victims, who could then speak with survivors to inquire whether they were interested in receiving them.
A spokesman for the State Attorney General’s Office in Naumburg said that despite there being no legal means for halting such contact, it may nevertheless be a possible to find a way to avert direct contact between the perpetrator and his victims.
The spokesman said the only justification for confiscating such letters would be if their content were relevant to a criminal case. He did, however, say that copies would usually be required in any case in which a letter was sent.
Recipients who talked with media expressed disgust at the invasion of privacy, with one saying, “We were shocked when we returned home from vacation to find the letter in our mailbox.”
A trauma counselor working with survivors underscored the weight of the situation: “The perpetrator has seized control of victims’ lives once again. None of the survivors that I have been in contact with is interested in an apology.”
German parliament opens inquiry into Magdeburg attack
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*Editor’s note: DW follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and urges us to refrain from revealing the full names of alleged criminals.
