Bielefeld: Islamist knife attack ends with life sentence and preventative detention
A 36-year-old Syrian must serve a life sentence in prison following a fatal attack on revellers in Bielefeld. The Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court established the particularly serious nature of the offence and subsequently ordered preventative detention.
Bielefeld: Islamist knife attack ends with life sentence and preventative detention
A 36-year-old Syrian must serve a life sentence in prison following a fatal attack on revellers in Bielefeld. The Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court established the particularly serious nature of the offence and subsequently ordered preventative detention. The judges found it proven that the man, in the early morning of 18 May 2025 in front of a bar in the city centre, attacked several people with a knife and a homemade stabbing weapon.
Five people aged between 22 and 27 suffered life-threatening injuries. Among them were numerous supporters of football club Arminia Bielefeld, who had been celebrating their team's promotion to the second division. According to the court, the attacker is said to have shouted religious slogans during the bloodbath. Only when he lost his weapon and encountered resistance did he stop and escape.
Investigators are treating the attack as terrorism-motivated. The convicted man is said to have been a member of the Islamic State. In his home country of Syria, he is said to have pledged allegiance to the terror network and worked as a fighter and property manager. Kurdish forces later captured him and held him for eight months. He finally travelled to Germany in 2023.
In pre-trial detention, the man confessed to the deed and stated that he had already committed two murders in Syria – including killing his half-brother on orders from the militia. A psychiatric assessment established that he was deeply radicalised. His extremist ideology shaped his entire thinking and actions. For this conviction, he had even abandoned contact with his own children.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office had called for the maximum sentence. The authority stressed that the convicted man remained dangerous and felt no compassion for his victims. The defence, however, pointed to a difficult childhood and mental illness. The man's condition had deteriorated in Germany after family reunification was blocked and he had found neither employment nor learned the language. He rejected a deradicalisation programme.
Before the attack, the Syrian is said to have sent a video to an Islamic State contact, though it was not made public. When arrested, he was carrying a handwritten note with a drawn flag of the organisation. A cousin had tipped off the police, whereupon officers arrested him on the evening of 19 May in Heiligenhaus near Düsseldorf.
The court awarded each of the four surviving victims 70,000 euros in compensation for pain and suffering. The injured had reported during the trial that they continued to suffer from the physical and psychological consequences of the assault. Without the swift intervention of emergency doctors and paramedics, the attacks could have been fatal, the judges emphasised.
Source: Der Spiegel