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Emergency services and train passengers in November 2021 after the attack
Photo: Angelika Warmuth / dpa
The accused of the knife attack on four passengers in an ICE in Bavaria more than a year ago has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The Munich Higher Regional Court found the 28-year-old Abdalrahman A. guilty of, among other things, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm.
A. had attacked four men with a knife in an ICE on the way to Nuremberg in November last year and seriously injured three of them.
The question of a possible jihadist background and possible mental illness of the Palestinian who grew up in Syria was at the center of the two-month trial in Munich.
The federal prosecutor's office had assumed a radical Islamist background to the crime and had demanded life imprisonment in the closing argument last week.
The judges now followed the assessment of the commissioned experts and ruled out a mental illness at the time of the crime.
The victims' lawyers, who acted as joint plaintiffs in the process, joined the claim.
The defense, on the other hand, sees their client as an incapacitated, paranoid schizophrenic and pleaded for an acquittal and placement in a psychiatric hospital.
"state of full culpability"
"Our client is ill, our client needs treatment, and our client is not a terrorist," his defense attorney said in his closing argument.
The 28-year-old felt he was being followed and monitored.
Immediately after the crime, A. told the police that he was ill.
The first assessment by a forensic psychiatrist came to the same conclusion, which is why his client first came to a clinic about two months after the arrest, argued the defense attorney.
According to federal prosecutors, however, the man only simulated a mental illness.
In her pleading, the federal prosecutor said that he committed the crime "in a state of full criminal responsibility" and wanted to make his contribution to the worldwide jihad.
Three psychiatric experts also agreed in the process that the man was not mentally ill.
aeh/dpa
