Germany: Palestinian terrorist murders 1, wounds 6

A Palestinian terrorist murdered one person and wounded six others in a stabbing spree at a Hamburg supermarket.  

A Palestinian terrorist stabbed one person to death and wounded six others in a supermarket in Hamburg, Germany, on Saturday.

The assailant was known to authorities as a suspected Islamic radical but was also considered psychologically unstable, German officials said Saturday.

Police said the suspect grabbed a kitchen knife with a 20-centimeter (nearly 8-inch) blade from a supermarket shelf on Friday afternoon and stabbed three men, one of them fatally. He then left the supermarket and hurt another three people outside, not all of them with the knife. Passersby then pursued and overwhelmed him, and he was arrested by police.

Identified as Ahmad A. by authorities, in keeping with Germany privacy laws, the 26-year-old had no identity papers other than a birth certificate showing he was born in the United Arab Emirates.

Eyewitnesses at the supermarket reported that he shouted “Allahu akhbar” (God is Great, in Arabic) during the attack.

An additional person was slightly hurt when she fell in the tumult, police said.

The terrorist’s motive remain unclear , but he is believed to have acted alone and there are no indications he had links to any network, Hamburg State Interior Minister Andy Grote said.

A judge issued a formal arrest warrant Saturday that keeps the suspect in custody pending possible murder charges and five counts of attempted murder, Hamburg prosecutors’ spokeswoman Nana Frombach told the DPA news agency. She said officials next week will consider whether federal prosecutors, who handle terrorism cases in Germany, should take over the case.

Grote said none of the wounded were being treated for life-threatening injuries, although some were seriously hurt. He and Hamburg Mayor Olaf Scholz toured the site of the attack, talked to witnesses and met with one of the hospitalized victims.

“It makes me especially angry that the perpetrator appears to be a person who claimed protection in Germany and then turned his hate against us,” Scholz said.

Ahmad had arrived in Germany in March 2015 after stops in Spain, Sweden and Norway. His asylum request was rejected late last year and authorities were trying to secure new Palestinian papers to deport him — a process in which they said he had cooperated.

Officials said he was on their radar as a suspected Islamic radical, but not as a “jihadist.” A friend had tipped authorities off to changes in Ahmad, telling them that he stopped drinking alcohol and started talking about the Quran, said Torsten Voss, head of the Hamburg branch of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.

A search of the terrorist’s room at an asylum-seekers’ center turned up no weapons.

By: AP and World Israel News Staff

GermanyIslamic terrorPalestinian terror