The person detained in reference to the stabbing of a Spanish vacationer at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial on Friday might have been planning for weeks to kill Jewish individuals, in keeping with German authorities.
The suspect, a 19-year-old Syrian refugee, was carrying a duplicate of the Quran, a prayer rug and a chunk of paper with the assault’s date and Quran verses when he was apprehended, suggesting a “non secular motivation,” the Berlin police mentioned on Saturday. In a joint assertion with the general public prosecutor’s workplace, they added that issues the suspect had mentioned to the police prompt that over a number of weeks “a plan to kill Jews got here collectively in his thoughts,” and that the placement of the assault additionally mirrored this concept.
The police mentioned they’d not dominated out connections to the Center East battle however had discovered no proof linking the suspect to different teams or people. He got here to Germany in 2023 as an underage refugee, was a authorized resident and had no legal report, the authorities mentioned, including that have been additionally investigating if psychological sickness had performed a task within the assault.
The 30-year-old sufferer, whose identify was not made public, sustained neck accidents that required him to have emergency surgical procedure and be positioned in a medically induced coma, officers mentioned, however his life was not in danger.
The assault passed off at Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, an expansive memorial throughout the road from the U.S. Embassy. It got here as Germans ready to vote in a divisive nationwide election on Sunday, and amid an increase in antisemitism throughout Europe.
Germany’s financial issues, coupled with frustration over immigration, are central points to voters in a parliamentary election the place the far-right get together, Different for Germany, or AfD, has risen within the polls.
The AfD get together, which has been linked to neo-Nazis, has promised to crack down on immigration and deport some immigrants, a message that has gained traction in a rustic that has suffered a sequence of assaults perpetrated by individuals from Afghanistan and the Center East.
An asylum seeker from Afghanistan rammed his automobile right into a union demonstration in Munich on Feb. 13, injuring dozens, and in December, a Saudi citizen killed six individuals and injured a whole lot extra when he drove his automobile by a Christmas market in central Germany.
Lars Dolder contributed reporting.
