Syrian suspect in Berlin stabbing wanted 'to kill Jews': police
A Syrian man arrested after a stabbing attack at Berlin's Holocaust memorial that seriously wounded a Spanish tourist had been harboring a "plan to kill Jews", police and prosecutors said Saturday.
The 19-year-old arrested Friday with blood stains on his hands was carrying a copy of the Koran and a prayer rug, they said.
The assault shocked Germany two days before Sunday's general elections after a campaign centred heavily on immigration and security fuelled by a series of deadly stabbing and car ramming attacks blamed on migrants.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser condemned the "abhorrent and brutal crime" and said that "we must assume an anti-Semitic" motivation.
The Syrian suspect "must be punished with the full force of the law and deported directly from prison", she said in a statement. "We will use all means to deport violent offenders back to Syria."
The attacker approached the 30-year-old Spanish man from behind at around 6:00 pm and stabbed him in the neck with a knife, according to investigators.
The assault took place at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a sombre grid of concrete steles located near the Brandenburg Gate and the US embassy in Berlin.
The victim suffered life-threatening injuries and had to be placed in an artificial coma but is no longer in critical condition.
The Syrian suspect came to Germany in 2023 as an unaccompanied minor, police said. He was granted asylum and lived in the eastern city of Leipzig.
Martin Strunden, a spokesman for the interior ministry in Saxony where Leipzig is based, said the suspect was known to the police there for petty crimes and had been living in refugee accommodation.
Six people who witnessed the knife attack received counselling from rescue services at the scene, where bloodied clothes were left on the ground.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said in a post on the social media platform X that he was "closely following the situation of the Spanish citizen who was stabbed in Berlin".
A Syrian man arrested after a stabbing attack at Berlin's Holocaust memorial that seriously wounded a Spanish tourist had been harbouring a "plan to kill Jews", police and prosecutors said
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