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CRIME

German man jailed over IS ties but cleared of skating rink attack plot

A Stuttgart court on Wednesday sentenced a German man to prison for his involvement with the Islamic State jihadist group, but cleared him of plotting to attack a skating rink.

Published: 2 December 2020 17:30 CET
German man jailed over IS ties but cleared of skating rink attack plot
Photo: DPA

Dasbar W. was arrested in December 2017 for allegedly planning to drive into crowds at an ice rink in Karlsruhe.

The court found insufficient proof to convict him for the alleged plot, but handed Dasbar W. five and a half years in jail for his links with the IS group.

Born in Germany, Dasbar W. moved with his parents to their home country of Iraq in 2006.

He returned to Germany in 2014 and a year later made contact in online chat groups with other IS sympathisers.

He travelled back to Iraq in June 2015 and began acting as a middleman between a high-ranking IS member and a prominent imam in Erbil.

Prosecutors said he returned to Germany after receiving an order from the IS contact to carry out an attack — but he failed to execute the task as two French students sharing an apartment with him warned the police.

The defendant then went back again to Erbil and spied on the prime minister's office as a potential target of attack.

He was caught and jailed for two months in Iraq.

Several months after his release, he returned once more to Germany in July
2017.

Dasbar W.'s arrest in December 2017 came a year after a Christmas market attack in Berlin that killed 12 people.

Rejected asylum seeker Anis Amri, a Tunisian, ploughed a truck into the market on December 19, 2016 before being shot dead while on the run days later in Italy.

READ ALSO: Berlin remembers victims of Christmas market terror attack three years on

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BREAKING

Several injured in ‘terrible’ knife attack in German city of Mannheim

A man wielding a knife attacked an anti-Islam campaigner and five other people in the southwestern German city of Mannheim on Friday before being shot by police, according to reports.

Published: 31 May 2024 14:09 CEST
Several injured in 'terrible' knife attack in German city of Mannheim

The suspect was shot and injured by police after previously having attacked and injured several people with a knife.

One of the injured was a police officer, who according to reports in Bild was stabbed in the back and suffered severe injuries.

The police were initially unable to say how many people were hurt in the attack and how serious the injuries were, but later reports revealed that at least six people had suffered injuries.

A police spokeswoman said that there was no danger to the public.

Writing on X in the aftermath of the incident, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) condemned the “terrible” and “unacceptable” attack.

“The pictures coming out of Mannheim are terrible,” Scholz wrote. “My thoughts are with the victims. Violence is absolutely unacceptable in our democracy. The perpetrator must be severely punished.”

The motive for the attack is still unclear, but police say they are investigating whether the attack was politically motivated.

Videos obtained by Bild reportedly show the unidentified perpetrator attacking the right-wing populist politician Michael Stürzenberger, who was holding a campaign event in Mannheim.

Stürzenberger, who is a member of the Pax Europa campaign group against radical Islam, is known for his outspoken anti-Muslim views.

He was mentioned in a 2022 report by the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution as “the central figure in the Islamophobic scene in Bavaria that is relevant to the protection of the constitution”. 

The group said on its website that Stürzenberger and several Pax Europa volunteers were injured in a knife attack at the rally.

Stürzenberger suffered serious stab wounds to his face and also to his leg, while a police officer was also stabbed in the back and neck, the group said.

With EU election campaigns currently underway ahead of the vote on June 9th, there has been a sharp uptick in politically motivated attacks in recent weeks in Germany.

Matthias Ecke, a European parliament lawmaker for Scholz’s SPD party, was set upon this month by a group of youths as he put up election posters in the eastern city of Dresden.

Days later, former Berlin mayor Franziska Gifey was hit on the head and neck with a bag as she visited a library in Berlin.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said last week that he was worried by the growing trend and said Germans “must never get used to violence in the battle of political opinions”.

READ ALSO: Suspect held in latest attack on German politicians

With reporting by Imogen Goodman

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