German prosecutors have pressed murder charges against the man who drove a car into a Christmas Market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg in December.

Taleb A.* is accused of six counts of murder and 338 counts of attempted murder, among other charges. Prosecutors said in their statement they would seek the German legal equivalent of a first-degree murder conviction. 

Five women aged 45 to 75 and one nine-year-old boy were killed in the attack on December 20, 2024, which left over 300 others injured.

The attack lasted one minute and four seconds, according to prosecutors.

Magdeburg Christmas market: What do we know about the suspect?

The suspect, a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian doctor who was arrested at the scene, was described by German authorities as an anti-Islam activist.

In a statement announcing the charges, prosecutors said the man "acted out of dissatisfaction and frustration at the progress and outcome of a civil lawsuit."

They said he acted "with the intention of killing an unspecified but as large as possible number of people in the path of his vehicle."

Prosecutors said preliminary investigations revealed that the attack was planned several weeks in advance, and without accomplices.

Before launching his car attack, Taleb A. had worked as a doctor in a forensic psychiatry unit for convicted criminals in Bernburg, a town 40 kilometers south of Magdeburg in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt.

It was revealed in February that a colleague had raised concerns about A. and alerted his superiors.

Several German security organs were reportedly aware of A., who was known to be an opponent of extreme Islamism.

Magdeburg market attacker shocks victims with letters

In July, it was revealed that A. had written letters to injured survivors of his attack from his jail cell, addressing them by name and asking them to forgive him.

Recipients told local 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. 

Authorities said they suspected A. had copied the contact details from documents in the possession of his defense lawyers.

Magdeburg: How have German politicians reacted?

Following the attack, the regional state parliament in Saxony-Anhalt focused its political inquiry on the security plans for the Christmas market and the potential culpability of the organizers, the city and the police.

Now, local politicians want to look into the culprit himself.

Soon after the attack, the region saw a surge in racially-motivated crime as the far-right looked to instrumentalize the incident.

Hundreds of neo-Nazis gathered at an extreme-right rally in Magdeburg on December 22, two days after the attack. The demonstration saw aggression against journalists.

The leader of Germany's far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Alice Weidel, spoke at a demonstration and didn't shut down chants of: "Deport! Deport! Deport!"

*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.