Suspected jihadist on trial in Germany for knife attack on train

The terrorism trial of a man accused of committing a bloody knife attack on a German high-speed train as it travelled through Bavaria last year began on Friday, reported dpa.

The 28-year-old defendant is charged with attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm.

Prosecutors say the Palestinian man made the decision in September 2021 at the latest to commit and act of jihad by indiscriminately killing non-Muslims in Germany.

On November 6, 2021, he attacked four men on a long-distance train from Passau to Hamburg and seriously injured several of them.

He approached a seated passenger from behind and stabbed him eight times in the head, neck and chest area, prosecutors say.

After the incident, the ICE train made an unscheduled stop in the Bavarian district of Neumarkt, where police officers arrested the man.

One of the charges against the man relates to a subsequent assault on a nurse in a Regensburg hospital, where the man also allegedly trashed his room.

Two central questions that have to be clarified at the trial are whether the defendant really is a jihadist and what his mental state was at the time of the crime, defence lawyer Maximilian Bär told dpa.