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CRIME

UPDATED: German knife rampage suspect moves to psychiatric care

The alleged perpetrator of a knife attack on a university campus in Mann was on Saturday transferred to psychiatric care, as one victim fought for her life in hospital, prosecutors said.

Police emergency vehicles parked in front of the Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences building where a 34-year-old man attacked several people with a knife and injured four people on 10th June 2022.
Police emergency vehicles parked in front of the Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences building where a 34-year-old man attacked several people with a knife and injured four people on 10th June 2022. Photo: Festim Beqiri/TV7NEWS/dpa

Three women and one man were injured in the incident on Friday, before other students managed to restrain the attacker at the Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences.

The 34-year-old suspect, who had been armed with two kitchen knives, “randomly selected” the victims, Dortmund prosecutors’ office spokesman Henner Kruse told reporters.

A 30-year-old assistant professor who was among those attacked while attending a conference was in hospital in a critical condition and doctors feared the worst. 

A 22-year-old student had suffered eight stab wounds to the stomach and needed emergency surgery, but her condition was not life threatening.

The other two victims, a 22-year-old man and another young woman of the same age, were less seriously injured, he added.

The suspect, a student at the university in the western German city of Hamm, said after the attack that he had felt threatened by a group of students who, according to him, wanted to “annihilate him”.

He was possibly suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia” and “hallucinations”, Kruse said, adding that he had a long history of treatment for mental health problems.

The police had ruled out any political or religious motives for the attack and an investigation for attempted murder and serious injury had been opened against him.

The WDR broadcaster, has reported that the suspect released himself from a psychiatric ward shortly before the stabbings, where he had been treated after a suicide attempt. He was in the psychiatric ward voluntarily because of self-harm and not by force or by a police order.

On Friday, the Ham police force wrote on Twitter that they were conducting a “major operation” in the area of the Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences, asking people to avoid the area. The Dortmund police force have since taken over the investigation.

According to the WDR broadcaster, the 34-year-old suspect went into the university building around 3:30pm on Friday. He attacked students with a knife in the corridors and then headed for a larger lecture hall with a lecture in progress, where students managed to restrain him. 

The first emergency services were on site just three minutes after the first emergency calls. Students held the suspect until the police arrived, WDR reported.

It is unclear whether the university will open as usual on Monday.

“We can’t imagine going back to normal standard operations on Monday. That wouldn’t be appropriate either,” the chancellor of the university, Sandra Schlösser, told WDR.

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CRIME

German Die Linke politician attacked in Thuringia

A politician from Germany's socialist Die Linke party was insulted and attacked in a supermarket in Eisenberg, Thuringia on Friday.

German Die Linke politician attacked in Thuringia

At the supermarket checkout, a man insulted the party’s state election candidate Steffen Much without reason and grabbed him by his T-shirt, the party’s regional association said on Saturday.

Much was unharmed, according to party sources, and filed a police report against the attacker, who he knew.

“I am glad that Steffen Much was not physically harmed,” said the co-chairman of the Left Party’s regional association, Christian Schaft.

“Insults and attacks like these are intended to intimidate everyone who is committed to an open and democratic society.”

There have been several attacks on politicians across the country recently.

READ ALSO: German far-right AfD candidate attacked with knife in Mannheim

The Thuringia state elections take place on 1 September.

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