Life in prison for Syrian convicted of Islamist stabbing in Germany

A Syrian man convicted of an Islamist terrorist stabbing in the west German city of Bielefeld last year was sentenced on Monday to life in prison and will remain in preventive detention if his sentence ends early due to the seriousness of his crimes, the court announced.

The ruling echos the demands of federal prosecutors.

The Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court found the 36-year-old man guilty of four counts of attempted murder, acknowledging the particularly serious nature of his offence.

He had previously confessed to carrying out an Islamist stabbing attack that seriously wounded four people outside a bar in the western city of Bielefeld last year.

Prosecutors said the man was motivated by his support for Islamic State and had sought to kill as many people as possible when he attacked a group of football fans outside a bar in May last year with a modified walking stick, to which he had attached an 18-centimetre blade.

The victims suffered life-threatening knife injuries. Witnesses said the attacker shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the assault.

According to prosecutors, the defendant had been active in Islamic State ranks in Syria for years before arriving in Germany in 2023. They said he sent a video claiming responsibility for the attack to an Islamic State contact shortly before carrying it out and was carrying a hand-drawn Islamic State flag.

The defence cited the defendant's difficult childhood and depression and asked the court to impose a 12-year prison sentence.

The suspect was arrested near Düsseldorf a day after the attack, after a cousin alerted police.