A swastika and a Jewish target, but not Jew hate?
A HAMBURG man went on trial on Friday accused of the attempted murder of a Jewish student, amid concern from the local community that the crime was not being prosecuted as an antisemitic act.
Grigoriy K, a 29-year-old German citizen born in Kazakhstan, left the 26-yearold student with serious injuries after beating him over the head with a short, collapsible shovel.
The incident took place October 4 in the vicinity of the Orthodox Hohe Weide synagogue in Hamburg. The student was making his way there on foot and was wearing a kippa at the time of the alleged assault.
The attacker travelled to the synagogue by taxi, wore German military camouflage, carried a pocket knife as well as the shovel, had a piece of paper with a swastika drawn on it in his pocket, and attacked someone who was identifiably Jewish.
The president of Hamburg’s Jewish community, Philipp Stricharz, is in no doubt that the attack was antisemitic, telling the German state broadcaster NDR he considers the assault a threat to the entire Hamburg Jewish community.
That the assault took place five days prior to the first anniversary of the Halle synagogue shooting that left two bystanders dead on October 9, 2019 only seemed to confirm intent.
State prosecutors agreed in the days following the assault when they, too, suspected an antisemitic motive was at play.
Now, however, consider the overriding factor behind October’s assault to be
The president of Hamburg’s Jewish community is in no doubt’
the defendant’s mental illness.
In January a psychological assessment concluded that the accused suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and “delusional fear of persecution”. Therefore, he could not be deemed criminally responsible for the attempted murder and act of aggravated battery.
The court proceedings, which finish by the end of March, will likely result in the defendant being institutionalised in a psychiatric hospital.
Due to Grigoriy K’s mental illness, it will mostly take place behind closed doors, though a representative of the Hamburg Jewish community will be permitted to attend all stages of proceedings.