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Flowers and candles are not far from the residential palace in Dresden: Here Abdullah Al HH allegedly stabbed two men
Photo: Sebastian Kahnert / dpa
After the arrest in the case of the knife attack on two tourists in Dresden, Green leader Robert Habeck called for a consistent fight against violence and hatred by Islamists.
"A gruesome murder in Paris of a teacher who defends freedom of expression, a fatal knife attack in the middle of downtown Dresden on two vacationers: The last few weeks have shown again how real the threat from violent Islamist criminals is," Habeck told the dpa news agency.
"We have to act consistently against this violence, driven by hatred and human contempt. It is a threat to our coexistence and our open society."
The federal prosecutor's office has taken over the investigation into the knife attack.
The investigators assume that the act on October 4th had a radical Islamist background.
20-year-old Syrian Abdullah Al HH was arrested on Tuesday evening.
An arrest warrant for murder, attempted murder and dangerous assault was issued on Wednesday.
Two men from North Rhine-Westphalia were victims of the attack.
A 55-year-old from Krefeld later died in hospital from his injuries.
His companion, a 53-year-old from Cologne, survived seriously injured.
Criticism of security authorities is loud
Habeck is not the only one who calls for a more resolute fight against Islamism after the arrest of Al HH.
Friedrich Merz, candidate for the CDU chairmanship, also criticized a failure by the authorities in SPIEGEL: "Why was this Islamist Syrian not taken into preventive detention or deported after serving his sentence?"
The pressing question arises, "why the Saxon security authorities did not monitor the threat better," said Michael Theurer, FDP parliamentary deputy in the Bundestag, to SPIEGEL.
"Once again, Germany's security authorities fail not because of a lack of information, but because they are unable or unwilling to do anything despite all the information."
Al HH, who was suspected of murder, was sentenced to a youth penalty by the Dresden Higher Regional Court in 2018 for promoting the Islamic State (IS) terror network.
The authorities had had him on the radar as an Islamist since 2017.
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mrc / dpa
