Syrian refugee hacks woman to death with a machete
Germany reels over new atrocity on the streets
A SYRIAN asylum seeker yesterday slashed a woman colleague to death with a machete in the centre of a German town before going on the rampage.
The 21-year-old, who then wounded a second woman and a man, was only stopped after a driver ran into him with his BMW car.
Witnesses said the man ran through the cafe where he and the woman, 45, both worked, swinging the 12in-long weapon above his head. There were reports that the woman, who was of Polish origin, was pregnant.
Police described the attack as a ‘crime of passion’ and German media reported that the attacker had an argument with the woman before he killed her. The two who were injured are also believed to be employees in the same cafe in Reutlingen, near Stuttgart.
The killer was already known to the police for various crimes, including assault and drugs offences. He is thought to have lived in Germany for more than a year.
The attack, at around 4.30pm yesterday, will heap further pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel over her open-door migration policy that saw more than a million asylum seekers arrive in the country last year. It comes after a man claiming to be a refugee from Afghanistan wounded five people with an axe on a train in Wurzburg last Monday, and a German-born gunman shot dead nine people at a McDonald’s in Munich on Friday.
Bystanders last night said the ‘crazed’ killer in the latest attack ‘was completely out of his mind’, with one saying that he even ran with his weapon behind a police patrol car.
Another witness described how a BMW driver drove at him after seeing him with the machete, saying: ‘He struck him and the man went down. He didn’t budge after that.’
Video footage showed the man, who has a beard, lying on the pavement covered in blood after he was hit, with his weapon just yards away. Just minutes later armed police officers arrested him, who can be seen pinning him down and handcuffing him.
Paramedics attempted to save the woman’s life but she died and her body was covered with a white sheet outside the cafe, where she worked as a cleaner.
The driver, who was named only as Alper K, 21, is thought to be the son of the cafe owner. A police spokesman last night said that the man was ‘known to police’. He added: ‘When a man and woman have an argument, we assume that we are dealing with a crime of passion.’
The spokesman also said that the incident ‘did not bear the hallmarks of a terrorist attack’.
More than 1.1million people claimed asylum in Germany last year after Mrs Merkel opened its borders. The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party last week accused the chancellor of putting the country at risk in the wake of the Wurzberg attack.
MEP Beatrix Von Storch said: ‘Islamist terrorism and sexual assaults by migrants are the constant proof that Mrs Merkel’s policy is endangering the country.
‘We must speak openly and unsparingly about the reasons and the background of the terror attacks in Paris, Brussels, Nice and now Wurzburg.’
A poll released on Friday by broadcaster ZDF found more than three-quarters of Germans (77 per cent) believe the country will soon be the target of terrorism, up from 69 per cent two weeks before.
‘Completely out of his mind’