A German court on Thursday jailed a Syrian man for 13 years for a jihadist-inspired knife attack on a Spanish tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial.
The 20-year-old suspect, named only as Wassim Al M., was convicted of attempted murder, grievous bodily harm and seeking to join a terrorist organisation, the court said.
The stabbing in February 2025 inflamed an already heated debate on migration just a few days before a general election in Germany.
Presiding judge Doris Husch said Al M. had committed the crime “in the name of the Islamic State group” and had been looking to target “Israelis or people of the Jewish faith”.
He approached the victim from behind among the concrete steles of the memorial and inflicted a 14-centimetre-long (more than five-inch) cut to his throat, the judge said.
Al M. was arrested hours later when he returned to the scene of the attack with blood stains on his hands, carrying a copy of the Quran and a prayer rug.
He shouted “Allahu akbar”, or “God is greatest”, after the attack, the court was told.
“The victim only survived because the defendant missed major blood vessels by a few millimetres,” the judge said.
The 30-year-old Spaniard, who was visiting the memorial with two friends, managed to stagger out of the steles before collapsing in front of the memorial.
– ‘Deep shame’ –
The victim, who testified during the trial, “still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, can no longer work, is afraid of people approaching him from behind and can no longer use public transport”, Husch said.
Al M. was born in north-eastern Syria and came to Germany in 2022, according to the judge.
His asylum application was rejected, but he was granted a temporary residence permit and found work in vehicle assembly for BMW through a temporary employment agency.
After his contract ended, he was unable to find further work, took to consuming cannabis and became involved with radical Islamic ideologies, the judge said.
Shortly before the attack, he contacted IS via a messaging service and offered his services as a member.
During the trial, prosecutors said Al M. had travelled to Berlin from his home in the eastern city of Leipzig, motivated by his support for IS and “driven by the escalation of the Middle East conflict”.
He had “internalised IS ideology, rejected the Western way of life, and was convinced that a holy war against infidels must be waged worldwide”, they said.
Al M. confessed to the crime, which he said had been motivated by his radicalisation and belief he was acting with a religious mission.
“My shame is too deep, I ask for forgiveness,” he told the court, according to his lawyer.
– Migration debate –
As Al M. was 19 at the time of the attack, the judges had to decide whether to apply juvenile or adult law under a special system for offenders aged 18-20 in Germany.
They ruled he should be treated as an adult based on his emotional and psychological maturity at the time.
The assault shocked Germany two days before the February 2025 general election, after a campaign centred heavily on immigration and security fuelled by a series of deadly knife and car ramming attacks carried out by migrants.
Germany is home to around a million Syrians — many of whom arrived during the huge influx of refugees that peaked in 2015 under former chancellor Angela Merkel.
Since the overthrow of president Bashar al-Assad, debate has grown heated around whether wartime refugees should return to Syria.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in particular has called for them to go home, highlighting the spate of high-profile violent crimes.
Germany’s conservative-led government in December deported a convicted criminal to Syria for the first time since 2011, following months of talks with Syria’s new government.