Berlin:
A Syrian man arrested after a stabbing attack at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial that wounded a Spanish man had been harbouring 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, and initial investigations suggested “connections with the Middle East conflict”, they said.
The attacker approached the 30-year-old Spanish man from behind at around 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Friday and stabbed him in the neck with a knife, according to the 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 to his neck and had to be placed in an artificial coma but was 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, according to the investigators.
There was no evidence of links to other people or groups and the suspect had not previously come to the attention of the police in Berlin, they said.
The assault happened two days before a general election after a campaign centred heavily on immigration after a series of deadly stabbing and car ramming attacks blamed on migrants.
Six people who witnessed the knife attack on Friday received counselling from rescue services at the scene, where bloodied clothes were left on the ground.
Germany has grown increasingly alarmed about rising anti-Jewish sentiment and violence since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
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