German held for stabbing 4 ‘infidels’
Print Edition
A GERMAN man yelled: “Infidel, you must die” and “Allahu akbar” as he stabbed four people, one fatally, at a Bavarian train station yesterday, witnesses said.
Authorities, however, said they have found no links to any Islamic extremist network and that the attacker appears to be psychologically disturbed.
One victim died in hospital and three others were being treated for their wounds.
The 27-year-old suspect was taken into custody near the scene at the Grafing Bahnhof just before 5am and had a 10-centimeter survival knife tucked into his belt, authorities said.
The man, whose name wasn’t released in line with German privacy laws, had admitted to the crime, said Ken Heidenreich, spokesman for the Munich prosecutor’s office in charge of the case.
However, there are questions over whether he can be held criminally responsible, Heidenreich said, adding that officials are evaluating whether he should be taken to a mental institution.
Senior police official Lothar Koehler said the suspect told them he had been taking drugs, and that about the time of the attack he took his shoes off because “he felt bugs on his feet that had caused blisters and were generating intense heat.”
Koehler said it wasn’t immediately clear whether the suspect was under the influence of drugs at the time of the attack, and that no record of narcotics cases against him have been found.
The attack came at a sensitive time in Germany after the influx of about 1.1 million migrants last year and growing concerns about how the country will deal with them, particularly in Bavaria, their usual state of entry.
Senior police official Guenther Gietl said a woman reported hearing the phrase “Infidel, you must die” as the attack began, and that the suspect himself had admitted to yelling “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”
Koehler said the suspect made a “rather confused impression” during questioning, while criminal police official Petra Sandles said there was no evidence he was linked to a extremist network.
Authorities said the man lives near Giessen, in Hesse state, and it wasn’t clear why he had traveled to Grafing.
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