Investigation into how the Germany Christmas market attack was allowed to happen descends into bickering and finger-pointing, as newspaper reveals the car-sized gaps in security were known about weeks in advance.
A representative of the Magdeburg city municipal company that runs its annual Christmas market had written to local police three weeks before December’s fatal attack to point out problems, an alleged leaked email said to have been seen by the Volksstimme newspaper claims. The publication states the email refers to the security plan made for the Christmas market, given German authorities know well their annual festivities are a prominent target for attacks, and states the police side of arrangements wasn’t being adhered to.
Referring to the security plan having emergency vehicle accesses to the centre of the market to allow access for police, ambulance, and fire engines in case of an incident but those routes having to be closed off by a parked police vehicle otherwise, the council employee states those police vehicles are frequently absent.
They are reported to have written: “In the area of Hartstrasse, the vehicles are sometimes parked in the wrong position,… I spoke to my colleagues politely and they told me that they had no information about the operation here.”
The email is said to have received no response. It is further stated the market’s security concept was inspected prior to the event opening, but that inspection failed to notice deficiencies, including car-sized gaps between the so-called ‘diversity barriers’ ringing the site not being secured with thick steel chains. Volksstimme stated: “when the market opened, there were wide gaps between the concrete barriers that were supposed to protect the entrances and escape routes.”
In the event, access to the market had been left so wide-open the alleged attacker was able to drive in the market at one end, and then straight out of the other — at the Hartstrasse mentioned in the leaked email — without being stopped, and after having killed five and injured over 200, dozens of them critically.
Damning as the email may seem, Germany’s Bild notes a Magdeburg police representative totally rejected responsibility for the Christmas market, a situation the paper characterised as “everyone is blaming each other”.
The police spokesman told Bild: “The organizer is fundamentally responsible for security at the Christmas market” and that if the city had wanted to be able to control access to the market at four emergency access points, they should have erected lockable security gates rather than rely on the police.
As previously reported, the police being involved in blocking those entrances was nevertheless part of the plan police had agreed to and their own security documents referred to “mobile police barriers” being in place.
Protests by the police they are innocent in the matter appear to have already been dismissed as being potentially without foundation, however, as the local state government has already laid criminal charges against the local force and market organiser for an alleged failure to stop a preventable attack.
As previously reported of the Magdeburg attack:
Five people were killed, including a nine-year-old boy and four adult women last week when a man drove a high-powered BMW car through the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, eastern Germany. A 50-year-old male suspect, said to be an ex-Muslim with a history of threats against Germany is in police custody.
The security of Christmas markets has been a major topic in Germany for years since the 2016 Berlin attack, in which Tunisian “refugee” Anis Amri drove a stolen truck at high speed into crowds at the city’s Christmas market. Indeed, even before this Western intelligence agencies knew the Islamic State was pushing its agents in Europe to specifically target Christmas events and markets. American tourists were advised a month before the attack to avoid crowded places during the festive season due to the ISIS threat.
A special committee on the attack is meeting today at the German interior ministry. Among those attending are the Federal interior minister, the head of the federal criminal police, the vice president of the federal political police, and the mayor of Magdeburg.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.