Afghan knife attack suspect faces German psychiatric detention

By AFP
|
June 12, 2025
Police salutes in front of a wreath the day after two people, one a child, were killed in a knife attack, in Aschaffenburg, Germany, January 23, 2025.—Reuters

FRANKFURT, Germany: An Afghan man suspected of stabbing to death two people, including a two-year-old boy, in a German park should be permanently placed in a psychiatric hospital, prosecutors recommended on Wednesday.

Germany was stunned by January´s attack on a play school group in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg, one of a spate of bloody incidents that fuelled a heated immigration debate ahead of elections.

After concluding their investigation, prosecutors said that, based on a medical examination, “it can be assumed that the accused was not criminally responsible” for the attack “due to a psychiatric illness”.