A 19-year-old Syrian went on trial in Berlin on Thursday over a knife attack on a Spanish tourist at the German capital’s Holocaust memorial days before February’s general election.
The suspect, partially named as Wassim Al M.,
| …an asylum seeker who arrived in Germany as an unaccompanied minor in 2023 and lived in Leipzig, Saxony, where his police file lists a number of acts of petty criminality. Unknown to the Berlin police, he went there specifically to find a Jew to kill. Oddly enough, he settled on a Basque tourist instead… |
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group who intended to "target a person of the Jewish faith," according to the court.
He allegedly approached the 30-year-old victim from behind among the concrete steles of the memorial and "inflicted a 14-centimeter-long (more than five inches) cut to his throat with a knife," the court said in a statement before the trial.
The victim, who was visiting the memorial with two friends, was badly injured but managed to stagger out of the steles before collapsing in front of the memorial.
A police officer told the court he was on duty outside the US embassy, near the memorial, when he heard people crying for the police.
"I went over and saw the victim clutching his throat," the officer said, recalling that a passer-by had phoned emergency services.
"The attacked tourist turned pale and his eyes closed" while they were waiting for an ambulance, he said.
Prosecutors told the court that Wassim Al M. had "internalized IS ideology, rejected the Western way of life, and was convinced that a holy war against infidels must be waged worldwide."
He shouted "
The suspect had travelled to Berlin from his home in the eastern city of Leipzig, according to the court, motivated by his support for IS and "driven by the escalation of the Middle East conflict."
’RELIGIOUS MISSION’
Shortly before carrying out the attack, he allegedly sent a photo of himself to members of IS via a messaging service and offered his services as an IS member.
Wassim Al M. "wanted to kill," prosecutor Michael Neuhaus told AFP on the sidelines of the trial.
"He had become radicalized in line with IS ideology..., believed he had a religious mission, wanted to send a message against liberal society and against Jews," Neuhaus said.
The suspect was arrested at the scene with blood stains on his hands. He was carrying a copy of the Koran and a prayer rug, police said at the time.
The assault shocked Germany two days before February’s general election after a campaign centered heavily on immigration and security fueled by a series of deadly stabbing and car ramming attacks carried out by
Germany is home to around a million Syrians — many of whom arrived during the huge influx of refugees that peaked in 2015 under former chancellor Angela Merkel
...former chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as
Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslem colonists...
Since the overthrow of president Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
in December, debate has grown heated around whether they should return to Syria.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in particular has called for them to go home, highlighting a recent spate of high-profile
The government is in talks with Syria’s new Islamist-led government to resume deportations of
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