Brokstedt's bloody deed sparked a new debate about deportations in Germany.
Weeks after the crime, Interior Minister Faeser now claims that the perpetrator could have been deported.
Berlin – Brokstedt's act recently shook all of Germany.
On January 25, a man attacked other passengers with a knife on a regional train on the route between Kiel and Hamburg.
He stabbed passengers, two young people lost their lives, five others were injured, some seriously.
The deed in all its dreadfulness triggered yet another debate: Does Germany have to be more consistent in deporting?
Because just a week before the crime, the alleged perpetrator - at the time the suspect Ibrahim A. was said to be a stateless Palestinian from Syria - had been released from custody in Hamburg.
He was there after stabbing another man in the arm, hand and neck at a homeless shelter.
After the attack on the train, his lawyer expressed his surprise that his client had been released from custody so suddenly shortly before.
Brokstedt's bloody deed triggered a deportation debate
The question of why Ibrahim A. was not deported became louder and louder.
Initially, it was said that such a process would be difficult due to the suspect's alleged statelessness.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has now made it clear that the perpetrator could have been deported under certain circumstances.
"We tried to get to him, and if we had known that he was in custody, we could have listened to him and then deported him," said the SPD politician at the dpa editor-in-chief conference on Monday in Berlin.
"We now know that there was misinformation."
Faeser now confirms that the Brokstedt assassin could have been deported under certain circumstances
According to Faeser, the authorities have previously tried to deport the man - and they failed.
"The difficulty there seemed to be that he was stateless," said Faeser.
According to her, that would have been a process with the State of Israel and the Palestinian authorities.
So far, there have only been very few returns to the Palestinian territories with Israel's consent.
However, there appeared to be a glitch.
Because it had previously become known that the file that the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) created for Ibrahim A. incorrectly contained an identity card from Syria from another person.
Therefore, the BAMF has meanwhile assumed that the man is a stateless Palestinian from Syria.
A Bamf department head had also stated in the interior committee of the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament that Ibrahim A. himself had said after entering the country in 2014 that he came from the Gaza Strip and was stateless.
The police unions also saw a need for action after the fact and called for more police officers on trains.
(han/dpa)