The assailant has been arrested after a manhunt that lasted several hours
German police apprehended the suspect who stabbed a Spanish tourist at the site of Berlin’s iconic Holocaust memorial on Friday.
The attack took place in the German capital’s downtown Mitte district, two days before the election in the Bundestag.
According to the news agency RBB, the suspect unexpectedly stabbed a man in the field of concrete slabs, which comprise the monument honoring the Jews killed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. The Spanish national has been hospitalized and is in stable condition.
The suspect approached a group of police officers later that day. Police spokesman Florian Nath told reporters that the assailant had blood on his hands when he was detained.
“There is no information about the man’s identity as of yet. The weapon has not been recovered,” Nath said.
Germany has seen a wave of terrorist attacks in recent months. In December, a Saudi-born anti-Islam activist drove an SUV into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six people and injuring at least 299 more. In August 2024, a Syrian refugee fatally stabbed three people in Solingen, and, last month, an Afghan asylum seeker killed two people, including a toddler, in Aschaffenburg.
On February 13, another Afghan asylum seeker rammed a vehicle into a trade union demonstration in Munich, killing two people and injuring 37.
The uptick in terrorism has prompted renewed calls to crack down on immigration and extremism, which dominated the election campaign.
