Following the fatal knife attack in Mannheim, an arrest warrant has been issued against the suspected perpetrator. The 25-year-old is accused of murder, attempted murder and grievous bodily harm, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe announced on Monday in response to a request. The perpetrator had not been able to be questioned since the knife attack at the end of May, after he himself was shot during the attack.
On May 31, the 25-year-old Afghan injured five participants in a rally of the anti-Islam movement Pax Europa (BPE) and a police officer with a knife on Mannheim’s market square – including BPE board member Michael Stürzenberger. The 29-year-old police officer Rouven Laur later succumbed to his injuries. Another officer shot the attacker. He was subsequently operated on and could not be questioned at first.
A few days after the attack, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office took over the investigation. The highest German prosecution authority assumes that the crime was motivated by religion. The accused resorted to massive violence, presumably to prevent criticism of Islam, said Federal Prosecutor General Jens Rommel in Karlsruhe. It was a “special case”, an “individual case” that differed from other Islamist-influenced cases.
The crime also sparked an intense debate about stricter deportations of foreign criminals. As a consequence of the fatal knife attack, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) wants to make it possible to deport serious criminals to Afghanistan and Syria again. “Such criminals should be deported – even if they come from Syria and Afghanistan,” said the SPD politician in the Bundestag at the beginning of June.
“Serious criminals and terrorist threats have no place here.” At the Interior Ministers’ Conference last week, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) said she was already in talks with several states on the matter.