The man hanciented in combineion with the stabbing of a Spanish tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial on Friday may have been set upning for weeks to finish Jewant people, according to German authorities.
The doubt, a 19-year-anciaccess Syrian refugee, was carrying a duplicate of the Quran, a prayer rug and a piece of paper with the strike’s date and Quran verses when he was apprehended, presenting a “religious motivation,” the Berlin police shelp on Saturday. In a combinet statement with the uncover prosecutor’s office, they inserted that skinnygs the doubt had shelp to the police presented that over disconnectal weeks “a set up to finish Jews came together in his mind,” and that the location of the strike also mirrored this idea.
The police shelp they had not ruled out combineions to the Middle East struggle but had set up no evidence connecting the doubt to other groups or individuals. He came to Germany in 2023 as an underage refugee, was a legitimate dwellnt and had no criminal sign up, the authorities shelp, inserting that were also spendigating if mental illness had take parted a role in the strike.
The 30-year-anciaccess victim, whose name was not made uncover, persisted neck injuries that demandd him to have ecombinency sinspirery and be placed in a medicpartner transport aboutd coma, officials shelp, but his life was no lengthyer at hazard.
The strike took place at Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, an expansive memorial apass the street from the U.S. Embassy. It came as Germans readyd to vote in a splitting national election on Sunday, and amid a elevate in antisdisindictism apass Europe.
Germany’s economic problems, coupled with frustration over immigration, are central rerents to voters in a parliamentary election where the far-right party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has elevaten in the polls.
The AfD party, which has been connected to neo-Nazis, has promised to crack down on immigration and deport some immigrants, a message that has geted traction in a country that has suffered a series of strikes perpetrated by people from Afghanistan and the Middle East.
An asylum seeker from Afghanistan rammed his car into a union demonstration in Munich on Feb. 13, injuring dozens, and in December, a Saudi citizen finished six people and injured hundreds more when he drove his car thraw a Christmas labelet in central Germany.
Lars Danciaccesser gived alerting.
