Germany’s AfD rallies in Magdeburg, site of deadly Christmas market attack 

Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has held what it calls a “memorial” rally for the victims of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market that has inflamed debate on migrant and security policy.

The rally was held on Monday outside a cathedral in the eastern city of Magdeburg, the scene of last week’s attack that killed five people and left more than 200 others wounded.

“Terror has arrived in our city,” said the AfD’s leader in Saxony-Anhalt state, Jan Wenzel Schmidt, condemning what he labelled the “monstrous political failure” that led up to the attack, for which a Saudi Arabian citizen was arrested.

“We must close the borders,” he told hundreds of supporters of the anti-immigration party. “We can no longer take in madmen from all over the world.”

The party’s co-leader Alice Weidel described the attack as “an act of an Islamist full of hatred for what constitutes human cohesion … for us Germans, for us Christians”.

She demanded “change so we can finally live in security again”, as people in the crowd chanted: “Deport, deport, deport!”

The suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, faces numerous charges, including murder and attempted murder. He has lived in Germany since 2006 and has previously made anti-migrant and anti-Islam posts on social media, according to reports.

While motives have not yet been made public, Abdulmohsen has expressed strongly anti-Islam views, anger at German officials over immigration policies. He also has vocally supported far-right conspiracy theories about the “Islamisation” of Europe.

Despite the suspect’s expressed viewpoints, which align with the AfD’s anti-immigrant stance and Islamophobic rhetoric, Weidel referred to him as an “Islamist” at the rally – an attempt to bolster the party’s anti-immigrant views.

Friday’s attack has prompted political debate over migration policies before the early elections in February, in which the AfD hopes to increase its standing in parliament.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said “no stone will be left unturned” in uncovering what information had been available about the 50-year-old suspect, who had been treated for mental illness in the past, according to the German newspaper Die Welt.

Meanwhile, an anti-extremist initiative called “Don’t Give Hate a Chance” also gathered in Magdeburg. “We are all shocked and angry to see that people want to exploit this cruel act for their own political ends,” the initiative said in a statement.