by WorldTribune Staff, June 8, 2017
Germany has been plagued by a wave of crimes where knives were the weapon of choice. The surge in stabbings coincides with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow some two million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East into Germany, a report said.
More than 1,600 knife-related crimes were reported in Germany during the first five months of 2017, Gatestone Institute reported on June 6. The number of knife-related crimes rose by 600 percent in the past four years – from about 550 in 2013 to nearly 4,000 in 2016.
However, “increased censorship by the police and the media, aimed at stemming anti-immigration sentiments, makes the public incapable of knowing the names and national origins of many perpetrators or victims,” the report said.
The surge in stabbings “is being exacerbated” by Germany’s lenient judicial system, the report said. “Offenders receive relatively light sentences, even for serious crimes. In many instances, individuals who are arrested for knife-related crimes are released after questioning from police. This practice allows criminal suspects to continue committing crimes with virtual impunity.”
In Berlin, a migrant who stabbed and seriously injured another migrant after he refused to give him alcohol and drugs was released and financially compensated because no witnesses to the crime could be found, the report said.
Also in Berlin, investigators discovered that Anis Amri, the 24-year-old suspect in the December 2016 Berlin terrorist attack in which 12 people died, had been involved in a knife-fight in the city’s Neukolln district in July 2016, but police failed to arrest him.
“Had Amri been deported, as he should have been, the Berlin attack possibly could have been prevented,” the report said.
Arnold Plickert, the deputy national chairman of the GdP police union, said much of the knife-violence in Germany can be attributed to certain segments of society that live according to their own rules, not those of the German state. In an interview with knife-blog.com, a German forum for knife enthusiasts, he said:
“We are monitoring a specific target group, which mainly consists of young males who are armed in everyday life and basically are dedicated to armed confrontation. We see this particularly in large Arab families, Lebanese clans, for whom knives are standard gear. Knives are also basic equipment for career criminals and members of youth gangs.”
In May alone, an average of 10 knife attacks per day were reported.
Among them:
In Cottbus, members of a Syrian gang stabbed five Germans. In Freiburg, a Turkish man stabbed another Turk sitting in the passenger seat of a car stopped at a traffic light. In Karlsruhe, a Somali asylum seeker stabbed another Somali asylum seeker. Police said the attack was an act of revenge: the stabbing victim had recently stabbed the stabber. In Aachen, a North African man pulled a knife on a security guard at a grocery store after he was caught shoplifting.
In Schwerin, a Syrian man pulled a knife on another Syrian man in a dispute over a 15-year-old girl who is not Syrian. In Peine, an asylum seeker from Sudan stabbed and seriously wounded an asylum seeker from the Ivory Coast. In Kassel, a Syrian migrant stabbed a Turkish man during a dispute over money.
Other reported attacks since the influx of migrants began were for alleged political or religious motives, brawls involving feuding ethnic groups and honor killings.
Among them:
- In Hanover, a 16-year-old German-Moroccan girl stabbed a police officer in the neck with a kitchen knife. Police said the incident, which occurred at the central train station, was the first jihadist attack in Germany inspired by the Islamic State. “The perpetrator did not display any emotion,” a police spokesperson said. “Her only concern was for her headscarf. She was concerned that her headscarf be put back on properly after she was arrested. Whether the police officer survived, she did not care.”
- In Prien am Chiemsee, an Afghan man stabbed to death an Afghan woman who had converted to Christianity. The attacker ambushed the woman as she was exiting a grocery store with her two children.
- In Munich, a man shouting “Allahu Akbar” and “infidels must die” stabbed one person to death and slashed three others in an attack at a train station.
- In Gelsenkirchen, gangs of Syrian and Lebanese youths got into a mass knife fight in the city center. Police said that the level of violence was “brutal.”
- In Mulheim, around 80 members of two rival Lebanese clans got into a knife fight in the center of the city. It took hundreds of police, armed with machine guns, dogs and helicopters, more than three hours to restore order.
- In Mainz-Gonsenheim, several people were stabbed during a mass brawl between Syrians and Iranians.
- In Leipzig, an Iraqi man was stabbed and seriously injured during a massive brawl in front of a Kebab restaurant. When police tried to intervene, the mob attacked them with bottles and stones.
- In Bocholt, a Lebanese man stabbed to death his Moroccan wife, the mother of his three children, because he thought she wanted to divorce him.
- In Ahaus, a Nigerian asylum seeker stabbed to death a Hindu woman after she seemingly offended his honor by rejecting his romantic advances. The woman was employed at the asylum shelter where her attacker lived.
- In Hanau, a Syrian refugee stabbed to death his 30-year-old sister, who was 23 weeks pregnant and was accused of having brought shame to her family. Her unborn child also died in the attack.
“Knives, axes and machetes have become weapons of choice for criminals in Germany, which has some of the strictest gun laws in Europe,” the Gatestone report said.
“Merkel’s open-door migration policies appear to have set in motion a self-reinforcing cycle of violence in which more and more people are carrying knives in public — including for self-defense.”
Letters to the Editor __ Subscribe to Geostrategy-Direct __ Support Free Press Foundation
Unreported: Germany hit with stabbing epidemic by migrants added by World Tribune on
View all posts by World Tribune →