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Pakistan Military Court Jails 25 over 2023 Attacks

Supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan hold his posters during a gathering by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to observe Martyrs' Day to honor those who allegedly died during last month's protest, in Peshawar on December 15, 2024. (Photo by Abdul MAJEED / AFP)
Supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan hold his posters during a gathering by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to observe Martyrs' Day to honor those who allegedly died during last month's protest, in Peshawar on December 15, 2024. (Photo by Abdul MAJEED / AFP)
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Pakistan Military Court Jails 25 over 2023 Attacks

Supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan hold his posters during a gathering by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to observe Martyrs' Day to honor those who allegedly died during last month's protest, in Peshawar on December 15, 2024. (Photo by Abdul MAJEED / AFP)
Supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan hold his posters during a gathering by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to observe Martyrs' Day to honor those who allegedly died during last month's protest, in Peshawar on December 15, 2024. (Photo by Abdul MAJEED / AFP)

Twenty-five civilians were sentenced by a Pakistani military court to periods of two to 10 years of "rigorous imprisonment" in connection with attacks on military facilities in 2023, the armed forces' media wing said on Saturday.
The ruling underscores concerns among supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan that military courts are going to play a bigger role in cases involving the 72-year-old, who is facing multiple charges including allegedly inciting attacks against the armed forces.
Thousands of Khan supporters stormed military installations and torched a general's house on May 9, 2023 to protest against the former premier's arrest by paramilitary soldiers. At least eight people were killed in the violence.
The military's Inter-Services Public Relations office said the sentences handed down on Saturday were an "important milestone in dispensation of justice to the nation,” Reuters reported.
"It is also a stark reminder to all those who are exploited by the vested interests and fall prey to their political propaganda and intoxicating lies, to never take law in own hands," it added in a statement.
Others charged over the violence were being tried in anti-terrorism courts but justice would only be fully served "once the mastermind and planners ... are punished as per the Constitution and laws of the land," the military said.
The ruling comes days after Khan was indicted by an anti-terrorism court on charges of inciting attacks against the military. An army general who served under him as his spy chief, Faiz Hamid, is facing a military investigation on the same charges.
Pakistan's Supreme Court last week allowed military courts to announce verdicts in concluded trials of nearly 85 supporters of Khan on charges of attacking army installations, however it made such verdicts conditional on the outcome of appeals against the jurisdiction of military courts over civilians.
The court last year provisionally allowed military courts to try civilians.

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Germans Mourn the 5 Killed and 200 Injured in the Apparent Attack on a Christmas Market

21 December 2024, Bremen: Mobile barriers secure the streetcar tracks at the Christmas market in Bremen, after the Magdeburg's Christmas market attack the day before. (dpa)
21 December 2024, Bremen: Mobile barriers secure the streetcar tracks at the Christmas market in Bremen, after the Magdeburg's Christmas market attack the day before. (dpa)
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Germans Mourn the 5 Killed and 200 Injured in the Apparent Attack on a Christmas Market

21 December 2024, Bremen: Mobile barriers secure the streetcar tracks at the Christmas market in Bremen, after the Magdeburg's Christmas market attack the day before. (dpa)
21 December 2024, Bremen: Mobile barriers secure the streetcar tracks at the Christmas market in Bremen, after the Magdeburg's Christmas market attack the day before. (dpa)

Germans on Saturday mourned the victims of an apparent attack in which authorities say a doctor drove into a busy outdoor Christmas market, killing five people, injuring 200 others and shaking the public’s sense of security at what would otherwise be a time of joy and wonder.

The alleged attack Friday evening in Magdeburg, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin, killed a 9-year-old and four adults and injured 41 people badly enough that authorities warned the death toll could rise.

Magdeburg marked the tragedy Saturday with the tolling church bells at 7:04 p.m., the exact time of the attack in the city of roughly 240,000 people.

The driver, a 50-year-old doctor who immigrated from Saudi Arabia in 2006, surrendered to police at the scene. He’s being investigated for five counts of suspected murder and 205 counts of suspected attempted murder, prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said at a news conference.

Among other things, investigators are looking into whether the attack could have been motivated by the suspect’s dissatisfaction with the way Germany treats Saudi refugees, Nopens said.

“There is no more peaceful and cheerful place than a Christmas market,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. “What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality.”

Although Nopens mentioned the treatment of Saudi immigrants angle, authorities said Saturday that they still didn't know why the suspect drove his black BMW into the crowded market.

Police haven't publicly named the suspect, but several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appears to have been an active user of the social media platform X, accusing German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe.”

The violence shocked Germany and Magdeburg, which is the capital of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring the centuries-old German tradition of Christmas markets. It led several other communities to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss. Berlin kept its many markets open but increased its police presence at them.

Germany has suffered a string of extremist attacks in recent years, including a knife attack that killed three people and wounded eight at a festival in the western city of Solingen in August.

Friday’s attack came eight years after an extremist drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

Chancellor Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser traveled to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service is to take place in the city cathedral in the evening. Faeser ordered flags lowered to half-staff at federal buildings across the country.

Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone, his head arched up slightly. Other officers swarmed around the suspect and took him into custody.

Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, a 34-year-old manicurist from Vietnam whose salon is in a mall across from the Christmas market, was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs that she thought were fireworks. She then saw a car drive through the market at high speed. People screamed and a child was thrown into the air by the car.

Shaking as she described what she had witnessed, she recalled seeing the car bursting out of the market and turning right onto Ernst-Reuter-Allee street and then coming to a standstill at the tram stop where the suspect was arrested.

The number of injured people was overwhelming.

“My husband and I helped them for two hours. He ran back home and grabbed as many blankets as he could find because they didn’t have enough to cover the injured people. And it was so cold,” she said.

The market itself was still cordoned off Saturday with red and white tape and police vans, as armed officers guarded at every entrance. Some thermal security blankets still lay on the street.