Berlin Court Sentences Syrian to 13 Years for Memorial Stabbing

A Berlin court convicted a 20-year-old Syrian man of attempted murder on Thursday and sentenced him to 13 years in prison for stabbing a Spanish tourist at the city's Holocaust Memorial more than a year ago. The attack, carried out on February 21, 2025, at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, left the victim with life-threatening injuries and was motivated by the assailant's support for the Islamic State group.

The defendant, identified only as Wassim Al M. under German privacy laws, traveled from his home in Leipzig to Berlin that day with the intent to target someone he believed to be Jewish, according to presiding Judge Doris Husch. He approached the 31-year-old victim from behind amid the memorial's concrete slabs and inflicted a 14-centimeter wound to the man's throat. The tourist survived only because the knife missed major blood vessels by millimeters, court officials said. After the stabbing, Al M. shouted "Allahu akbar," meaning "God is great" in Arabic. The victim staggered out of the memorial area before collapsing and was rushed to a hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery and was placed in an induced coma.

Investigators determined that Al M. had...