German train stabbing in 2021 treated now as Islamist terrorism

A knife attack on a German train last year in which four people were injured is now being treated as Islamist terrorism, prosecutors said in a statement on Monday.

The suspect, a Syrian man who was 27 at the time, is accused of carrying out the sudden and unprovoked attack on a high-speed train between the Bavarian cities of Regensburg and Nuremberg on November 6.

He was initially taken into psychiatric care after an assessment suggested he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and was most likely not criminally responsible for his actions.

But prosecutors in Munich on Monday said he “is presumed to have been culpable at the time of the crime” and they believe he “acted out of an extremist Islamist conviction.”

The case had already been passed to the Bavarian police’s anti-terrorism unit after investigators found Islamist propaganda videos on the suspect as well as Islamist content on his Facebook account.

It will now be handled by federal prosecutors in Karlsruhe, responsible for terrorism cases.

Prosecutors say some of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries and accuse the suspect of attempted murder, attempted manslaughter and grievous bodily harm.

Germany remains on high alert for terror attacks from Islamists and far-right extremists after a series of deadly incidents in recent years.

In May, a Syrian jihadist was given a life sentence for stabbing a German man to death and severely wounding his partner in a homophobic attack in the eastern city of Dresden.

Prosecutors have also said they suspect an Islamist motive behind the fatal stabbing of three women by a Somali man in the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg last June.

Source: Manila Standard