Police: Berlin Holocaust Memorial attack suspect planned to kill Jews
The suspect in Friday's attack at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin was motivated by anti-Semitism, German prosecutors said on Saturday, as Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called for him to be deported to Syria from prison.
"According to what we know so far, especially based on statements made by the accused to the police, he has been planning to kill Jews for several weeks," Berlin police said.
The incident had "connections with the Middle East conflict," the public prosecutor's office added.
The attack saw a 30-year-old Spanish tourist seriously injured with a knife.
The victim was hospitalized with wounds to his throat and underwent emergency operations. His life is no longer at risk.
Authorities said the suspect, who was apprehended by police hours after the incident, is a 19-year-old Syrian refugee who entered Germany as a minor in 2023.
He is believed to have specifically targeted the Holocaust Memorial in the German capital, which commemorates the approximately 6 million Jews murdered under Nazi rule.
The suspect was also said to be carrying a Koran and a prayer rug in his rucksack, suggesting a religious motive for the attack.
"Whether there is a mental illness is the subject of the investigation," said police.
Authorities in the eastern state of Saxony, where the suspect lived, said he was known to police for earlier criminal offences.
The 19-year-old is not a repeat or serious offender, according to Saxony's interior ministry.
He was not obliged to leave the country and was living in shared accommodation in Leipzig, according to dpa information.
Faeser calls for deportation
The incident came just two days before Germany heads to the polls after an election campaign dominated by a series of attacks attributed to foreign nationals.
Interior Minister Faeser expressed her horror at attack, calling for the alleged perpetrator to be punished severely and "deported directly from prison."
"The knife attack at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial is a heinous and brutal crime," said Faeser in a statement on Saturday.
"Anyone who commits such offences and abuses protection in Germany in the most disgusting way has forfeited any right to be in our country," said Faeser.
She announced that she would use all avenues "to deport violent offenders back to Syria."
Faeser wished the injured man a speedy recovery and thanked the Berlin police and emergency services.
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner also condemned the "cowardly" attack. "It is clear to me that anyone who wants protection in Germany does not attack people with a knife."
"I expect the next federal government to ensure that such perpetrators lose their protected status and have to leave our country quickly," the mayor continued.
Berlin's interior senator, Iris Spranger, denounced the attack and said she hoped the victim would recover.
"An attempted murder offence with suspected anti-Semitic motivation at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe - that is intolerable," she said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
6 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Very scared' immigrants continue to answer ICE summons as protesters target S.F. building
Dozens of protesters returned Sunday to a nondescript, two-story white building in an alleyway in San Francisco's South of Market where Bay Area residents working to legalize their immigration status were summoned by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this weekend. Activists suspected a trap and brought immigration attorneys to counsel confused immigrants and their families who feared violating the terms of their conditional release if they failed to show and arrest if they did appear. So far, the office has remained locked and closed, as protesters chanted and banged drums at the Tehama Street building. 'People were very scared and very panicked,' said Luis Angel Reyes Savalza, a San Francisco deputy public defender. 'It's very irregular to receive a last minute message to report on a weekend. In my 10 years of practicing, I've never heard of reporting on a weekend.' Savalza and other attorneys, most volunteering their time, said Saturday they assisted more than 50 participants in the Alternatives to Detention or Intensive Supervision Appearance Program. About 7.6 million immigrants participate in the program, which allows them to live at home as their cases are processed, according to ICE figures from October. Four program participants who received similar text messages were arrested after reporting to the ISAP office in Fresno on Saturday, Savalza said. 'We have a very strong reason to believe that our mobilization and support stopped ICE from detaining people at the office yesterday,' Sanika Mahajan, an organizer from Mission Action, said Sunday. ICE officials did not immediately return a request for comment Sunday. The mysterious weekend reporting requests coincided with massive No Kings Day marches and rallies in San Francisco and nationwide in response to a growing opposition movement to President Donald Trump as he pushes to deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. The text messages, sent in Spanish, told recipients to report to the Tehama Street facility during business hours Saturday or Sunday. 'If you do not present yourself according to instructions it will be considered an infraction,' the messages read. Savalza said attorneys have counseled immigrants who went to the facility to inform their reporting officer and to verify their arrival with a photo at the location. Immigrants continued to show up Sunday, though it remained locked in the morning. Protesters circled in front of the front door, chanting and holding signs, such as 'I.C.E. Out the Bay.' Anti-ICE graffiti remained on the walls from the day before. In the past, ICE protests have focused on more high-profile buildings such as the field office on Sansome Street and the San Francisco Immigration Court on Montgomery Street.
USA Today
7 hours ago
- USA Today
Nezza sang U.S. national anthem in Spanish after the Dodgers requested it in English
Nezza sang U.S. national anthem in Spanish after the Dodgers requested it in English Los Angeles has been at the center of massive protests the past week in response to ICE's enforcement tactics and the deployment of U.S troops to the downtown federal building. And over at Dodger Stadium, the singer, Nezza, did her part to show support to the Latino community. It took disregarding a Dodgers employee to do so. Nezza was the anthem singer for Saturday's game against the Giants, and she performed 'El Pendón Estrellado' — the Spanish version of the "Star-Spangled Banner." The Spanish rendition of the anthem — which is an officially commissioned version — was greeted to massive applause at Dodger Stadium. But Nezza would later show that the Dodgers asked her to perform in English just before she took the field. She wrote on Instagram: Para mi gente ❤️ I stand with you. Yesterday was easily one of the scariest days of my life. I sang 'El Pendon Estrellado' the OFFICIAL Spanish star spangled banner (commissioned by President Roosevelt) at the Dodgers game after being told I couldn't. And I'm so proud that I did. Stay safe. Stay strong. I love you. The Dodgers had not commented about the protests over the past week. And according to The Athletic, the Dodgers declined to comment about Nezza's performance and the request to sing in English.
New York Post
7 hours ago
- New York Post
LA rioters join the Democratic pantheon of honored haters and criminals
The entire career of race-baiter Al Sharpton was founded on falsehoods about the Tawana Brawley scam. Nearly everything the left told us about the Trayvon Martin fight was false. The 'hands up, don't shoot' Ferguson fable and the Covington Kids myth were quickly exposed. Advertisement The Duke Lacrosse and Jussie Smollett melodramas were laughable. Russian 'collusion,' 'laptop' disinformation, and Joe Biden 'fit as a fiddle' gaslighting were utter lies. But more recently, the hard left has lost its mind championing a host of violent, unsavory characters. Advertisement The illegal alien and El Salvadorian national, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was portrayed as a victim of unfair deportation in the left's larger, losing war for open borders. Abrego Garcia became a 'Maryland Man': a supposed poor victim of Trump overreach. He was constructed as a family man engaged in construction to feed his family, who somehow forgot to become 'documented' and was deported. In truth, Garcia is now facing felony indictments for human trafficking. Advertisement He was a likely MS-13 gang member, a violent and bullying woman-beater, and rarely employed gainfully in construction. Luigi Mangione was a rich, spoiled kid who dabbled in Jacobin politics. Posing as a revolutionary, Mangione ambushed Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. He murdered him in cold blood near a New York hotel. Instantly, some on the left embraced Mangione as a revolutionary hero who delivered justice to a supposedly greedy corporate capitalist. Advertisement Mohammed Sabry Soliman, like Garcia, was a violent illegal alien. He bragged about his hatred of Jews in general and Israel in particular. Soliman made some Molotov cocktails and tried to incinerate Jewish marchers advocating on behalf of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas. Soliman's wife and five children, to whom Soliman filmed a video explaining his dedication to violent jihad, were also illegal aliens. Soliman may well have preferred to burn Jews to remind us of the fires of the Holocaust ovens. In the mind of the mainstream liberal media, the Soliman family was cruelly detained by the evil Trump administration that was considering returning the illegal aliens to their Middle East homes. But during the Los Angeles riots, the left went completely crazy as the entire Democrat Party and California state officials sided with violent protesters and illegal aliens. The open-border rioters soon got the message that left-wing California officials were on their side. So throngs began burning cars. Protesters spat on law enforcement and pelted them with rocks, firecrackers and concrete blocks. Advertisement Stores were looted. Critical freeways were swarmed and shut down. And for what? To protest the legal efforts of ICE to serve deportation warrants to a few hundred of some 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens who illegally swarmed into the United States during the Biden administration's four-year destruction of immigration law. California Gov. Gavin Newsom damned the federal immigration efforts as 'chaotic' and 'reckless' and seemed obsessed only with Trump. Advertisement Then Newsom dared ICE to arrest him. Like some antebellum, neo-Confederate states' rights activist, Newsom threatened to withhold California's federal income taxes from the federal government — a possible felony. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — recently infamous for junketing in Ghana while Pacific Palisades burned down — warned ICE, 'We will not stand for this.' What did her threat mean? Did she intend to use force to support the street thugs against her fellow American officers? Advertisement California Democrat Rep. Norma Torres screamed at overwhelmed ICE agents seeking to issue arrest warrants with the obscene threat, 'Get the f*** out of LA!' As the mob violence increased and public outrage grew, a desperate and now embarrassed Newsom could only double down on his obsessions with Trump. What has caused Newsom's Trump derangement? Is it because Trump called out the National Guard and Marines to aid an overwhelmed Los Angeles Police Department and stop the violence that left-wing officials and the media had appeased? Advertisement In sum, is the left once again trying to commit political suicide? Polls showed overwhelming public support for deporting those who illegally entered and reside in the US, especially the nearly half a million believed criminals. Trump's own most supportive demographic in recent polls has been Hispanics. Like all Americans, they are appalled by violent thugs and illegal aliens waving Mexican flags who have no wish to return to Mexico — yet burn American flags as they demand illegally to stay. The more the incoherent left claimed the protests were 'peaceful' and damned the Trump administration for sending them help, the more the violence continued. And the more the public was relieved that Trump was trying to stop the riots. Democrats currently lack sane and effective leaders. But that is no excuse to swoon over creepy gang-bangers, spoiled-brat assassins, antisemitic burners of Jews, and illegal aliens breaking the law and damning America — while waving Mexican flags. Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.
