Suspect in train attack trial declares himself innocent This is how Putin travels luxuriously in his special train

Horribly brutal scenes play out on the regional train to Hamburg on January 25: At the start of the murder trial in Itzehoe, prosecutor Janina Seyfert describes in detail how Ibrahim A. allegedly acted in the knife attack in Brokstedt in Schleswig-Holstein.

She charges the accused Palestinian with murder and attempted murder for base motives and treason in the regional court in northern Germany on Friday. A 17-year-old girl and her boyfriend, two years her senior, were killed in the attackfour other people suffered serious and serious injuries.

The 34-year-old suspect listened carefully and then admitted to having been on the train. But he denied the act itself: “I just want to say I’m innocent.” The slender man with a surefire short haircut and light beard also denied any mental illness.

According to Seyfert, Ibrahim A. committed the crime out of frustration that he had not made an appointment with the immigration service in Kiel. He then stole an eight-inch knife from a supermarket in the capital – with the intention of attacking people.

On the regional train to Hamburg, he first stabbed a 17-year-old teenager. She died after 26 stab wounds, which included cutting through the femoral artery. The suspect allegedly stabbed the 19-year-old friend of the young woman twelve times. Among other things, he received a fatal stab to the heart.

In the further course of the crime, Ibrahim A. allegedly attacked and seriously injured four other passengers in different carriages of the train with a large number of stab and cut wounds. Finally, a man managed to beat the perpetrator with a briefcase and a laptop bag in such a way that he lost the knife and gave up in front of witnesses.

The act caused horror and sympathy throughout Germany. A woman injured in the fatal knife attack later took her own life.

Defense attorney Björn Seelbach said he was not making a statement for his client. However, he pointed out that he himself – like a psychiatrist who had examined Ibrahim A. – was convinced that the suspect would be better placed in a psychiatric ward than in custody. The question is what the correct sanction is for the act. ‘From a medical point of view, a referral to psychiatry is better’Selbach said.

However, the responsible expert is not yet sure whether there was an acute delusion at the time of the crime. If the expert in the proceedings had come to the same conclusion, Ibrahim A. might have been innocent. Prosecutor Seyfert, however, emphasized on the sidelines of the proceedings that she currently assumes that the suspect is guilty.

Attorney Seelbach said before the trial that his client did not deny the crime. In custody, Ibrahim A. was noticed several times because of his aggressive behavior and he is seen as a difficult prisoner.

The man had been released just days before the fatal knife attack, which he had been serving in Hamburg for another crime. In that time he had spoken to a psychiatrist about mental health problems 16 times.

About 40 days of negotiations are planned for the process until shortly before Christmas. Eight joint plaintiffs appear in the proceedings and 127 witnesses have been named. The hearing of evidence will begin at the next hearing on July 17.

(yam/sda/dpa)