An Afghan man deemed psychologically ill faced a German court on Thursday over a deadly knife attack on a group of toddlers that his defence lawyer labelled the ‘deed of a madman’.
The stabbings nine months ago in a park in the southern city of Aschaffenburg killed a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man who tried to protect the children, and left three others wounded.
Prosecutors acknowledged that the 28-year-old who set upon the daycare group with a kitchen knife on January 22 was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
The attack, which came just a month before German national elections, inflamed an already heated debate on migration.
The suspect, who was arrested near the scene of the stabbing, has been only partially named as Enamullah O., in line with usual practice by the German judiciary.
Facing the court in handcuffs and foot shackles, he appeared groggy and subdued, wearing an open white shirt with a dark jacket.
He mostly stared at the table and yawned frequently, which his lawyer said was due to medication he has been taking.
Prosecutors are seeking to have him permanently confined to a psychiatric facility. They previously said there was no indication the suspect acted out of extremist or terrorist motivation.
Five toddlers from a kindergarten class were in a public park, accompanied by two teachers, when the assailant attacked them with a kitchen knife.
He also injured a two-year-old Syrian girl, one of the teachers as well as a 72-year-old man who had also tried to protect the children.
Defence lawyer Juergen Vongries told the court that O. was experiencing fits of delusion and had only vague memories of voices he heard at the time of the crime.
His client had expressed regret, but could offer no explanation for why he attacked the children.
A few minutes before the attack, he had allegedly watched a YouTube video with the Turkish title ‘Motivating Combat Music’, prosecutor Juergen Buntschuh said while reading the indictment.
The two-year-old boy was stabbed five times, and the man slain by the attacker was stabbed four times, he said.
Buntschuh said the attacker’s delusions and severe mental impairment meant he was not able to fully recognise the horrific nature of his actions.
Not long after the attack, German media reported that the authorities had tried and failed in 2023 to deport the man to Bulgaria – the first EU country he had arrived in.
In August 2024, he allegedly threatened a fellow resident at an accommodation for asylum seekers in the nearby town of Alzenau with a butcher’s knife and caused her minor injuries.
The Aschaffenburg stabbings, which followed a string of other bloody attacks in Germany, provoked intense political reactions.
Friedrich Merz, the leader of the centre-right Christian Democrats who went on to become chancellor, promised a ‘fundamental’ overhaul of asylum rules and strict border controls if elected.
About a week later, Merz, then the opposition leader, relied on support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to/ach pass a non-binding resolution through parliament demanding stricter immigration and refugee policies.
Merz’s decision to rely on far-right support broke a longstanding taboo in post-World War II German politics, prompting fierce criticism and mass street protests.
