After the bloody knife attack on ICE passengers about a year ago, the federal prosecutor's office demanded a life sentence for the alleged perpetrator. In her closing speech on Thursday, federal prosecutor Silke Ritzert accused him of, among other things, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm for base motives in three cases. In addition, she assumes that the act has a radical Islamist background.

On November 6, 2021, the then 27-year-old is said to have suddenly attacked four men with a knife in an ICE on the way to Nuremberg and seriously injured three of them. The central question of the negotiation is whether the alleged perpetrator is a jihadist and how his mental state is to be assessed at the time of the crime. Three psychiatric experts in the trial agreed on the latter: The accused was not mentally ill at the time of the crime.

Mental illness should be feigned

Ritzert said in her closing speech that he committed the bloody act "in a state of full criminal responsibility". He wanted to make his contribution to global jihad and indiscriminately attacked travelers as "representatives of an open society". He only pretended to have a mental illness so that if he was convicted he would be sent to a psychiatric facility instead of prison - but his calculations did not work out.

On Friday, the court should continue with the closing arguments of the defense. At the beginning of the proceedings, the court had scheduled 24 days of hearings until December 23 - the verdict will probably also be announced on this day.