The suspect in the car-ramming incident at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg had appeared in seven investigative proceedings in the two years prior to the attack, Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported on Saturday.
According to the information, verified by dpa, he was the complainant in five of the cases and the accused in two others. Shortly before Christmas, the man - identified only as Taleb A according to Germany's privacy laws - drove a car at high speed through the Magdeburg Christmas market, killing five people and injuring almost He remains in custody.
Taleb A had been working as a doctor in a psychiatric hospital in the town of Bernburg since , treating addicts who had committed crimes.
In one of the investigation proceedings, Taleb A threatened a lawyer who had once represented him, as well as the lawyer's family and office staff. After a complaint was filed, police visited him at work on October 4, to warn him that he was being monitored. The police did not communicate the reason for the visit with the hospital administration, a spokeswoman from Salus, the company running the hospital, told dpa.
Police are allowed to share personal data with public and non-public bodies for reasons of preventing criminal offences. In response to an enquiry, the regional criminal investigation office said it had no indications that "a transfer of data could avert dangers in the employer's environment," meaning the conditions for sharing the data were not fulfilled.
