The police officer injured on Friday in a knife attack in the central square of the German city of Mannheim died this Sunday due to the severity of his injuries, according to the Baden-Württemberg Criminal Investigation Office and the Prosecutor’s Office. from Karlsruhe. The 29-year-old agent was one of six people who a 25-year-old man, born in Afghanistan, stabbed before a rally by the Pax Europa citizen movement, critical of Islam, began.
The police officer underwent emergency surgery on Friday and remained in the hospital in an induced coma. According to the statement, he died late in the afternoon. In the video that has circulated on social networks – the attack was seen live because the act of the extreme right group was already being broadcast – you can see how the aggressor stabs the agent in the neck from behind. In the midst of the confusion, the police officer tried to pin the person he believed to be the aggressor to the ground, but who was actually one of the people from the organization who were confronting the attacker.
The alleged murderer, who attacked the people preparing the start of the event with a large knife, was shot down by another police officer and remains hospitalized. Until this Sunday it had not been possible to take a statement from him.
“The news shakes me to my core,” said the president of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann. “All our thoughts are with family, relatives and colleagues.” The Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner, has stated that he is “very moved by the death of the young police officer.” “And I am angry about what is happening in our country. We must defend ourselves from Islamist terrorism. We will continue to financially strengthen the security authorities. End of false tolerance,” he added in his X account.
On Saturday, a court issued an arrest warrant for attempted murder against the attacker. In a joint statement with the Mannheim police, the Karlsruhe Prosecutor’s Office has reported that it is a 25-year-old man, born in Afghanistan and resident in Germany since 2014, married with two children. The target of the attack was, according to the German press, the Islamophobic activist Michael Stürzenberger, founder of the far-right movement Pax Europa, although the authorities have not yet confirmed the Islamist motive. The agents who searched the detainee’s home on Friday night seized several electronic devices that are being analyzed.
Join Morning Express to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe
Stürzenberger was injured in the face and chest and is in a stable condition. “Everything happened very quickly, a person approached me and stabbed me,” he said on Saturday from his hospital room in a videoconference interview with the newspaper. Bild. The activist is under police protection. Four other people from his organization were attacked while trying to help Stürzenberger. They are between 25 and 54 years old and among them there is a Kazakh citizen and another Iraqi, according to the Police. All, except the youngest, remain hospitalized and are stable.
Follow all the international information on Facebook and xor in our weekly newsletter.
