A Syrian man convicted of an Islamist terrorist stabbing in the west German city of Bielefeld last year was sentenced on Monday to life in prison and will remain in preventive detention if his sentence ends early, due to the seriousness of his crimes, the court announced.
The ruling echoes the demands of federal prosecutors, who said the defendant lacked any empathy with his victims. His radical Islamist convictions meant that he remained dangerous, they argued.
The Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court found the 36-year-old man guilty of four counts of attempted murder, acknowledging the particularly serious nature of his offence.
In conversations with psychologists and psychiatrists during his detention he had confessed to carrying out an Islamist stabbing attack that seriously wounded four people outside a bar in the western city of Bielefeld last year.
He had also said during his detention that he had killed two people in Syria on behalf of Islamic State, including his half-brother.
Prosecutors said the man was motivated by his support for Islamic State and had sought to kill as many people as possible when he attacked a group of football fans outside a bar in May last year with a modified walking stick, to which he had attached an 18-centimetre blade.
The victims suffered life-threatening knife injuries. During the trial, they said they still suffered from the attack more than a year ago, when they were out celebrating at a Bielefeld bar. Witnesses said the attacker shouted, “Allahu akbar” – Arabic for “God is greatest” – during the assault.
According to prosecutors, the defendant had been active in Islamic State ranks in Syria for years before arriving in Germany in 2023. They said he sent a video claiming responsibility for the attack to an Islamic State contact shortly before carrying it out and was carrying a hand-drawn Islamic State flag.
His aim had been to kill as many people as possible, the prosecution said. He only fled the scene after losing his home-made weapon and realizing he faced firm resistance.
The suspect was arrested near Dusseldorf a day after the attack, after a cousin alerted the police.
The defence cited the defendant’s difficult childhood and depression and asked the court to impose a 12-year prison sentence.
Expert assessment
According to the psychiatric expert consulted for the trial, the defendant had been deeply radicalized, and Islamist-jihadist ideology formed an integral part of his personality and value system. He was even willing to sever contact with his children for this cause. The man was easily offended, intolerant and prone to violence.
Once in Germany, his mental state deteriorated after family reunification was halted, he failed to find work and did not learn German. The Syrian had refused to take part in a deradicalization programme.
~dpa
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