After the knife attack on a regional train near Brokstedt in Schleswig-Holstein, the alleged perpetrator made no statements on the matter at the magistrate’s appointment. There he was silent. After the results of the investigation are available, he will speak to his client, said lawyer Björn Seelbach on request on Saturday.
The 33-year-old stateless Palestinian was arrested on Wednesday after the knife attack as a suspect. Two people died in the act and five were seriously injured. An arrest warrant was issued for the man on two counts of murder and four counts of attempted manslaughter. The 33-year-old was released from custody just a few days before the crime.
The chairman of the working group on migration law in the German Lawyers’ Association (DAV), Thomas Oberhäuser, denied the question of whether the judiciary and administration could have prevented the crime on Deutschlandfunk on Saturday. He referred to legal considerations and requirements in pre-trial detention cases.
At best, the judiciary and administration could have prevented the crime by continuing to hold him in custody, according to Oberhäuser. “But the judiciary decided that that would have been disproportionate to the crime he was accused of.”
Ibrahim A. had been in custody since January 2022 after stabbing a man in a homeless shelter. A district court sentenced him in August to one year and one week in prison for dangerous bodily harm and theft. A. had appealed against this. Shortly before the sentence expired, the arrest warrant was lifted on January 19, 2023.
