A German court is due to deliver its verdict on Monday in the trial of a Syrian man who has confessed to carrying out an Islamist stabbing attack that seriously wounded four people outside a bar in the western city of Bielefeld last year.
Federal prosecutors have asked the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf to sentence the 36-year-old defendant, identified as Mahmoud M under German privacy rules, to life imprisonment for four counts of attempted murder. They have also requested that the court establish the particular gravity of his guilt and order preventive detention after any prison term.
The defendant admitted the attack during the trial and had previously confessed to psychologists and psychiatrists while in custody.
Prosecutors said the man was motivated by support for Islamic State and had sought to kill as many people as possible when he attacked a group of football fans outside a bar in May last year with a modified walking stick, to which he had attached an 18-centimetre blade.
The victims suffered life-threatening knife injuries. Witnesses said the attacker shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the assault.
According to prosecutors, the defendant had been active in Islamic State ranks in Syria for years before arriving in Germany in 2023. They said he sent a video claiming responsibility for the attack to an Islamic State contact shortly before carrying it out and was carrying a hand-drawn Islamic State flag.
The defence cited the defendant's difficult childhood and depression and asked the court to impose a 12-year prison sentence.
The suspect was arrested near Düsseldorf a day after the attack after a cousin alerted police.
