Wielding a large kitchen knife, Abdullah al-H H, a 20-year-old Syrian, allegedly stabbed the couple, who were visiting Dresden on 4 October.
Prosecutors claim al-H H, based in Aleppo, targeted the couple because they were gay and was motivated by radical Islamist ideology, being a recruiter for the Islamic State (ISIS).
He was charged last Thursday (11 February) with murder and attempted murder, according to Deutsche Welle.
German federal prosecutors charged a Syrian national suspected of stabbing two men last yearin the eastern city of Dresden, German media outlets reported Thursday.
The 20-year-old suspect is said to have been motivated by a radical Islamist ideology, and targeted the couple because they were homosexual, prosecutors say.
He is facing charges of murder and attempted murder with Islamist and homophobic motives, according to Der Spiegel magazine.
Armin Laschet, premier of North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, has been chosen as the new leader of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He is now in a position to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor after general elections this September.
Laschet, a Merkel loyalist and continuity candidate, narrowly beat conservative Friedrich Merz by 521 to 466 votes in a run-off vote by party delegates on January 16. The CDU had previously chosen Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Merkel, but she stepped down as party leader in January 2020 after a series of regional electoral defeats cast doubt on her ability to retain the chancellorship.
JOE BIDEN looks tipped to battle it out with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s successor who pushed a US-ISIS conspiracy theory.
…Mrs Merkel may not have much say in how the US-Germany relationship pans out, as she was last week replaced as leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) by centrist Armin Laschet.
Many now note that while it is difficult to predict how Mr Laschet will engage with Mr Biden, looking back on the German politician’s previous rhetoric might offer some clue as to how their relationship will develop, and potentially collide.
…Mr Laschet, who was then MP for North Rhine-Westphalia, replied: “Yes, Mr Kerry, but You supported ISIS and Al Nusra against President Assad in Syria.
“And they are financed by Qatar and Saudi-Arabia.”
He added: “Assad was fighting against ISIS and Kerry tried to weaken Assad in this fight.”
Mr Laschet’s line has been described as a “conspiracy theory” which pushes an element of legitimacy onto the country’s President – who has been described as a dictator – Bashar al-Assad.
He went on to claim that many of the victims of the Syrian war were “killed by rebels and al Nusra terrorists”, and not overwhelmingly by Assad and his forces.
Germany’s right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has filed two lawsuits against the nation’s domestic security service that is reportedly about to designate it a “suspected” extremist group ahead of national elections.
The party has filed two legal complaints and two emergency motions against the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution – a domestic security agency known as BfV – the German dpa news agency reported. The move followed a series of media reports suggesting that BfV could formally declare the whole party a suspected extremist organization.
A wall of the Oswiecim Jewish cemetery was defaced with Nazi symbols, including a swastika and Nazi SS bolt, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The cemetery is located just under two miles from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, the Memorial posted on Twitter Sunday.
Germany’s two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council ended on December 31, 2020. The German Foreign Ministry, in a self-congratulatory compilation of its supposed achievements to “strengthen the international order,” declared that Germany now deserves to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
A closer examination of Germany’s voting patterns at the UN over the past several years, however, reveals a troubling double standard on a range of issues, especially on human rights, which the German government claims to be “a cornerstone” of its foreign policy.
As a social worker, Franco Clemens has experienced a lot. But nothing prepared him for what happened on New Year’s Eve five years ago. It happened “in multicultural Cologne, of all places, a melting pot of integration,” he reflects. The night began seemingly harmlessly.
Just as in years past, a crowd assembled in the square in front of the central railway station, right next to the city’s landmark gothic cathedral. Nothing unusual for the city in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia. But this time, a throng of about a thousand young men was forming in the crowd. Most of them were from the North African-Arabic region.
The United States is ratcheting up the threat of sanctions against European companies in an effort to deal a death blow to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. The pipeline would double shipments of Russian natural gas to Germany by transporting the gas under the Baltic Sea. U.S. President Donald Trump, like his predecessor Barack Obama, has criticized the project because it would make Germany “captive” to Russia for its energy supplies.
Trump has been especially critical of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who, in opposition to the United States and many Eastern European countries, has doggedly pursued the pipeline project, which would funnel billions of dollars to Russia at a time that Germany is free-riding on the U.S. defense umbrella that protects Germany from that same Russia.
That would be the same Teutonic Tart noted here, she luvs her China too – Angela Merkel faces European revolt over China trade policy
China rudely dismissed German UN Ambassador Christoph Heusgen’s plea to release two Canadian detainees – Michael Kovrig and Michael Pavor, known as the “2 Michaels” – from custody in China.
Eleven people died and 60 were seriously injured when the Islamist Anis Amri drove a stolen truck into a Christmas market in central Berlin on December 19, 2016.
The 24-year-old Tunisian national whose application for asylum had been rejected had hijacked the semi-trailer truck, killing Polish driver Lukasz Robert Urban.
The attacker managed to escape and travel through Europe until he was shot dead by Italian police on December 23 after an altercation in Milan.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Sunday said he was “relieved” that a “humanitarian” recovery operation had brought home 18 children and five “Islamic State” (IS) brides from Kurdish-run internment camps in northeastern Syria.
One of three German women brought back, identified in reports as Leonore M., 21, from Saxony-Anhalt state, was arrested a day earlier on arrival in Frankfurt airport, on charges including terror organization membership, said federal prosecutors.
All three German women reportedly face terror charges in Germany.
Germany will not renew the ban on deportations to war-ravaged Syria, the German Interior Ministry announced on Friday.
The decision was made at a virtual meeting of the country’s 16 state interior ministers, who rejected calls from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) to extend the measure.
Announcing the change, Deputy Interior Minister Hans-Georg Engelk said Germany should not be a shelter for criminals and threats.
“We stand by our brothers from Azerbaijan and we will not allow unbelieving dogs of Armenia to live in peace in Germany”, and further: “We know you, we know where your children are, Day and night.”
Full English translation here.
Two people died and several others were injured in a pedestrian zone in the western German city of Trier, after being struck by a vehicle on Tuesday, local police said.
Details of the incident were unclear, but a police spokesman told the dpa news agency that the driver had been detained, corroborating local reporting.
“We have several injured people in the pedestrian zone, who were hit by a car. The car is secured, the driver has been detained,” the spokesman said.
ＢＲＥＡＫＩＮＧ: Two dead and many injured after a car ploughed intentionally into pedestrians in #Trier Germany 🇩🇪 #TerrorAttack #Christmas pic.twitter.com/gncjJ2twad
— Blano (@BLANOsVideos) December 1, 2020
BREAKING – Car plows through pedestrians in the German city of Trier, at least 2 dead, 10 injured. The police rammed the car and arrested the driver.pic.twitter.com/oQHM83arwv
— Disclose.tv 🚨 (@disclosetv) December 1, 2020
Twitter – Trier
