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The city of Magdeburg and its police department may be held criminally liable for failing to prevent last week’s Christmas market attack that killed five, with criminal charges filed and an investigation into their competence underway.

The police themselves and local authorities in a German town are under investigation for potential misconduct after an apparent terrorist was able to evade security barriers ringing a public area to mow down pedestrians.

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.

Consequently, so-called ‘diversity barriers’ — large concrete blocks ringing public spaces to keep unwanted vehicles out — have become a familiar site in European cities. Yet since the alleged Magdeburg attacker was successful in getting a car into the secure area of the city’s market last week to kill, there is concern the city’s plan was insufficient or poorly executed.

The Saxony-Anhalt state government has now announced, reports ZDF Heute, that criminal charges have been filed against the Magdeburg city municipal government body responsible for running the Christmas market and local police. The state interior ministry said a complaint had been filed with the Magdeburg public prosecutor’s office.

The security plan for the market and its implementation will now be examined as part of the criminal investigation.

Shortly after the attack, witnesses and media reports alleged car access to the pedestrian area of the market hadn’t been effectively closed because an emergency access for ambulances had not been blocked off with a parked police truck as mandated in the plan. This has now been confirmed by the Saxony-Anhalt interior ministry, reports Tagesschau, who state this was the case and that they are now investigating how such a mistake came to be made.

Given local police themselves are now under scrutiny, the broadcaster states, additional officers from the neighboring city of Halle an der Saale may be brought in to take over the investigations.