Was Samir El Hydeouchi identified as the suspect in the December 20, 2024, vehicular attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany? No, that's not true: At the time this fact check was written, the suspect was taken into custody and a German official has stated the driver of the car, who was not named, was a Saudi national, a doctor with permanent residency status. The name Samir El Hydeouchi is a made-up name, a variant of Sam Hyde, who is a comedian whose name appears in a recurring prank meme whenever there is a shooting or mass casualty event.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on December 20, 2024. The post was captioned:
The first images of the perpetrator, Samir el Hydeouchi, of the attack in #Magdeburg are in. Beware, these are shocking images.
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Dec 20 21:23:13 2024 UTC)
On December 20, 2024 a person drove a car through a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg, Germany. The minister president of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff and the minister of the interior of Saxony, Tamara Zieschang, spoke to the press about the incident December 20, 2024. The video was posted to YouTube by German public broadcaster phoenix. Zieschang spoke in German, translated here by Google:
Prime Minister said it, we have two dead and several injured. The perpetrator is, according to current knowledge, 50 years old, comes from Saudi Arabia, and entered the Federal Republic of Germany for the first time in 2006. He has a permanent residence permit, the so-called settlement permit, and he is a doctor from Bernburg. According to current knowledge he acted as a lone perpetrator.
This video of a man smoking a cigar has nothing to do with the Magdeburg attack. It shows the comedian Sam Hyde.
This video has circulated online for some time. One example posted on YouTube (archived here) on March 5, 2022 is titled, "Sam Hyde casually driving a truck." This video has footage of a truck drifting remixed with footage of Sam Hyde casually smoking a cigar while driving.
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Fri Dec 20 21:46:54 2024 UTC)
The recycled hoax "Sam Hyde is the shooter" started on 4chan (archived here) and has circulated since 2015. The website knowyourmeme.com has an entry on Sam Hyde the comedian as well as an article about the hoaxes, titled: "Why Does Sam Hyde Trend After Every Tragedy? The Prolific Meme Phenomenon Explained."
The 31 prior Lead Stories fact checks on claims including the name Sam Hyde, or a spin on that name, can be found here.
