The parallels to the Würzburg case are obvious. On the evening of June 28, a 26-year-old Eritrean threatened two children with a machete and another long knife in the Neu-Omsewitz prefabricated building district of Dresden. Two young Iraqis intervene, the Eritrean gets angry and shouts “Allahu akbar”, God is greater.
Then he stabs. One of the Iraqis is hit in the leg. The victim is lucky, the wound is just a minor cut. The Eritrean escapes, the police cannot arrest him far from the scene of the crime. He is now in custody. And the investigators are puzzling, as in the Würzburg case, whether the stabber had an Islamist motive or is mentally disturbed – or whether both apply.
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“According to our interim assessment, an Islamist background is currently rather unlikely,” says the spokesman for the Dresden public prosecutor’s office. But nothing is excluded. The public prosecutor and the police have launched extensive investigations. Originally, the Eritrean should be sentenced in an accelerated process, the perpetrator was only in “main trial”.
But then the investigators felt it was necessary to take a closer look at the case. The main trial detention became remand. The prosecution does not say what tipped the balance.
After Würzburg, potential free riders could feel animated
It may have played a role that the Eritrean could have mimicked the attack by a Somali in Würzburg, in which three people died and seven were injured. The attack in Dresden came just three days later.
The media coverage of Würzburg, where the perpetrator also shouted “Allahu akbar”, was in full swing. Potential imitators could feel encouraged to also take to the streets with a knife and “Allahu akbar”.
In Dresden there is also the fact that in October 2020 an Islamist attacked a gay couple with two knives. One victim died and his partner was seriously injured. For the perpetrator, the two men were immoral unbelievers.
The case caused a sensation beyond Saxony, also because the security authorities had not kept an eye on the knife, which was known to be dangerous. This could be another reason for the public prosecutor and the police to investigate the Eritrean crime more intensively than originally planned – in order to avoid the possible accusation of not having done everything to clear up the crime.
The public prosecutor’s spokesman does not want to comment on theories. He says, however, that it will be examined to have the Eritrean psychiatric assessed. The perpetrator had already been noticed in 2018 with a dangerous bodily harm, for which there was a sentence of eight months and two weeks. Other petty criminal offenses such as theft and fare dodging were included in the judgment.
A psychiatric expert has already been appointed in the Würzburg case. After several phone calls, an expert was commissioned, according to the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office. The expert should examine the question of culpability. And whether the Somali Abdirahman JA has to be placed in a psychiatric hospital.
Police have “more than 130 forces” in action
The Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating together with the Soko “Main” established by the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office. In the police, “more than 130 people” worked to clear up the background to the crime, according to a joint statement by the Public Prosecutor General and the LKA. A takeover of the investigation by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which deals with Islamist terror, is apparently not pending.
The public prosecutor’s office also contradicts the Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU). Two days after the crime, he said in a video for the “Bild” newspaper, “In view of what we have found, there is a lot to suggest that it could be an Islamist-motivated act”.
During the search of the Somali man’s room in a homeless shelter, something “that could indicate Islamist propaganda material” was found. That has not been confirmed, according to the attorney general. In the room there was “nothing handy” for references to Islamism. The only indications so far are that Abdirahman JA is said to have shouted “Allahu akbar” during the knife attack in the Woolworth department store and that after his arrest he stated that he wanted to conduct his “jihad”.
When reading the Somali’s two cell phones, no Islamist propaganda has apparently been found so far. Even the handwritten notes that were in the home room do not seem to support the suspicion of a political motive. The two prayer rugs and the prayer beads from Abdirahman JA are unsuspicious utensils that can also be found on every other Muslim, say security circles.
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