On Friday morning, a man suddenly pulled out a knife on a train near Aachen and stabbed passengers indiscriminately, injuring several people. The public prosecutor sees no evidence of a terrorist background. She puts the Iraqi in a psychiatric clinic.

After the killing of a 31-year-old in a regional express in North Rhine-Westphalia, the man was admitted to a psychiatric clinic. The public prosecutor's office in Aachen announced that three cases were being investigated on suspicion of dangerous bodily harm and attempted insidious murder. According to the current state of knowledge, it is very likely that the suspect was suffering from psychosis.

The 31-year-old, who was born in Iraq and came to Germany as a refugee in 2015, is no stranger to the authorities. According to a tip from the refugee home where he was living at the time, an "Islamism test case" was created in his case in 2017. In the facility, it was noticed that he had increasingly isolated himself and suddenly had a long beard, according to security circles. However, the suspicion was not confirmed at the time. As a recognized refugee, the man has a temporary residence permit, sources said. After the act on Friday, there were no indications of a terrorist background or religious radicalization of the suspect, the public prosecutor emphasized.

In the local train from Düsseldorf to Aachen, the man suddenly jumped up on Friday at around 7.40 a.m. shortly after the train had continued in Herzogenrath and tried to open the door, the public prosecutor reported. When that was impossible, he punched a fellow passenger in the face and then pulled out a kitchen knife. First he aimlessly and then purposefully stabbed several fellow passengers.

It was "a cruel act that could be stopped in an act of enormous courage," said NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul. A 60-year-old federal police officer who happened to be sitting on the train and who was on his way to his office overpowered the man and arrested him, the Cologne police said. The victims suffered lacerations, one a stab wound. Four travelers were taken to a hospital, their lives were not in danger. There were about 270 passengers on the train.