Saudi Arabia's warnings about the suspected market attack were disregarded.

Saudi authorities, I am told, are currently working  hard to  gather all the information they have on Magdeburg market  suspect Taleb  al-Abdulmohsen and share it with  the ongoing  German investigation  "in any way  possible."
Inside the  imposing, sand-colored walls of Saudi  Arabia's Foreign Ministry in  Riyadh, there is a  sense of perhaps justifiable  unease.Not a valid attachment ID.
The ministry  had previously warned the German government  against al-Abdulmohsen's extremist  views.
It had sent four  "verbal notes," three to  German intelligence and one to the  Foreign Ministry in Berlin. There  was no response, according to the  Saudis.
Part of the explanation may  be that Taleb al-Abdulmohsen was granted asylum  in Germany in 2016,  a year after former Chancellor Angela Merkel  opened her country's borders to more than  10,000 people from the Middle East, and 10 years  later - 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 had turned his back on Islam,  becoming a heretic in the eyes of  many.
Born in the Saudi  city of Hofuf, a palm  oasis, in 1974, little is known about his early life before he decided to leave Saudi Arabia to  settle in Europe  at the age of 32.
Active on social media, on his Twitter  account (later  X), he  also presents himself as a psychiatrist and  the founder of a Saudi  human rights movement, with the tag  @SaudiExMuslims.
He founded a website aimed at helping Saudi women  leave their country  for Europe. The Saudis  accuse al-Abdulmohsen of being a  human trafficker, and  Interior Ministry investigators, Mabaatheth, are said to have  a very comprehensive file on  him.
In recent years, there have been reports of  Saudi dissidents being subjected to hostile  wiretapping by Saudi government  agents in Canada, the  United States, and  Germany.
There is no  doubt that German authorities, both federal and  regional, made serious errors of omission in the case of  al-Abdulmohsen.
Whatever his reason for not responding, as the Saudis claim, to repeated warnings about his extremism, he  appeared to be a danger to his adopted host  country.
It is also, separately, the  fact that he did not block, or at least  did not guard, the emergency  entrance to  the Magdeburg  market that allowed him to drive his BMW into the  crowd. German authorities defended the  market view and said an investigation into the  suspect's background was ongoing.
But a complicating factor here is that Saudi Arabia,  while considered a friend and ally of the West, has a poor human rights  record.
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Until June  2018, Saudi women were  banned from driving, and even those who  had publicly called for  the ban to be lifted before then  were persecuted and  imprisoned.
Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman,  who is only  30 years old, is  hugely popular in his  country.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman  attends his meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, October 23, 2024

image captionThe Saudi crown prince  is pictured in Riyadh during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in  October.
While Western leaders  have largely distanced themselves from him  following his alleged involvement in the  gruesome murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, which the crown prince denies, his star is still  rising in the  country. Under his  de facto rule, Saudi public life has  been transformed for the better, with men and women allowed to associate freely, cinemas  reopened, major sporting and entertainment  events held, and even  concerts by Western artists  such as David Guetta and the Black Eyed  Peas.
But there is a paradox  here.
While Saudi public life has  flourished, there has been a simultaneous crackdown on anything that even hints at  greater political or religious  freedom.
Heavy prison sentences of 10 years or more have been handed  out for simple  tweets.
No one is  allowed to question the way the country is  run. It is  in this  context that Germany  seems to have  abandoned Taleb al-Abdulmohsen.

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