Seven months after the deadly knife attacks on the regional train from Kiel to Hamburg, the Itzeho regional court has continued to take evidence. Two other witnesses testified. The students reported how the accused Ibrahim A. pursued a young woman in the stationary train at Brokstedt station and stabbed her with a knife.
Defense attorney Björn Seelbach announced that he was preparing an appeal to the Higher Regional Court in Schleswig. He wanted to get his client placed in a closed psychiatric ward instead of in custody. In the opinion of the defense attorney, the defendant, who, according to the provisional expert, was apparently mentally ill, was suffering from an acute psychotic episode at the time of the crime and was therefore presumably incapable of culpability. Seelbach accused the court of not clarifying this question sufficiently directly via the psychiatric expert, who was sitting in the courtroom and could be questioned directly, but only from the files.
Who are the witnesses?
During witness interviews, a 27-year-old student from Kiel reported hearing a woman scream. When he turned around, he saw the accused. He raised the knife in his right hand and then stabbed the woman who was fleeing in front of him in the shoulder and neck area. He himself ran away with other passengers and dialed the emergency number. While still on the train, I saw the suspect walking back and forth as if the man were thinking and looking for a new victim, the student said.
The second witness, a 30-year-old student from Hamburg, was reading and listening to music when she heard a woman scream violently. She then saw a woman with blond hair about two or three meters away who was trying to flee from a man with a knife, she said. Then the witness cried and took a few minutes to regain her composure. “I saw him stab right in,” the student said, pointing to the shoulder near the neck.
“I screamed no, no, stop! stop!” Said the 30-year-old in court. But the man stabbed. When everyone shouted: “Away, away,” she too started running. Outside on the platform, she saw other injured people – and also the perpetrator with the knife when he was being held by the police.
What is the accused accused of?
On the eleventh day of the trial, the 34-year-old was led into the hall in handcuffs and ankle cuffs and in the clothes of a prisoner on remand. The defendant looked briefly at both witnesses.
The public prosecutor accuses the stateless Palestinian of killing two young people aged 17 and 19 with a knife and seriously injuring four on January 25, 2023 in a regional train near Brokstedt station. The charges are two counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder.
