A Syrian man was arrested after carrying out a stabbing attack at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, which left a Spanish man injured. According to police and prosecutors, the 19-year-old suspect had been planning to “kill Jews.” Detained on Friday, the man was found with bloodstains on his hands, along with a Quran and a prayer rug. Early investigations pointed to potential “connections with the Middle East conflict,” authorities reported.
The suspect approached a 30-year-old Spanish man from behind around 6:00 p.m. on Friday, stabbing him in the neck with a knife. The attack occurred at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a solemn landmark consisting of concrete steles near Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and the US Embassy.
The victim sustained life-threatening neck injuries and was put into an artificial coma, though his condition later stabilized and was no longer considered critical. Police confirmed that the Syrian suspect had arrived in Germany in 2023 as an unaccompanied minor, received asylum, and had been residing in Leipzig, in eastern Germany.
Authorities found no links between the suspect and any groups or individuals, and he had not previously been noticed by Berlin police. Germany has been on high alert for potential Islamist attacks for several years, particularly since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, 2023.
In recent weeks, the country has experienced a string of violent incidents. Just last week, a driver crashed into a labor union demonstration in Munich, injuring 30 people, two of whom later died from their injuries. Several weeks earlier, a knife attack in Aschaffenburg left a two-year-old boy and a man dead. The attacker in that case was an Afghan whose asylum request had been denied, fueling migration debates during Germany’s election campaign.
Other recent attacks include knife incidents in Mannheim and Solingen last year, involving Afghan and Syrian immigrants. In the Solingen case, the attacker was a rejected asylum-seeker who was scheduled to be deported. Additionally, a Saudi doctor carried out a car ramming attack at a holiday market in Magdeburg in December, following prior attention from local authorities.
{Matzav.com}