The motive for the crime remains a mystery even three weeks after the attack

Three weeks after the murderous knife attack in Würzburg, there is good news. Of the five seriously injured, only one woman is still being treated in hospital, said a spokesman for the Lower Franconian police headquarters on Thursday. The other victims could have been released. On the afternoon of June 25, the Somali man Abdirahman JA first stabbed three women in a Woolworth department store and seriously injured the 11-year-old daughter of one of the dead.

The 24-year-old man attacked several passers-by on the street. Three women and a youth also suffered life-threatening injuries. Two other women got away with comparatively minor wounds. A Kurdish-Iranian refugee who opposed the stabber fell and suffered a graze. The police stopped the assassin with a targeted shot in the leg.
The Würzburg tragedy caused great horror. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that all of Germany mourned. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) called the act “incomprehensible and shocking” and ordered mourning flags. However, the motive of the Somali remains unclear. The security authorities are puzzling whether the man is mentally disturbed or acted out of Islamist hatred.

According to a witness, Abdirahman JA shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greater) at Woolworth’s. After his arrest, he claimed to have carried out his “jihad” (holy war). According to information from the Tagesspiegel, the “Soko Main”, formed after the crime at the State Criminal Police Office, determined a possible Islamist motive beyond the Federal Republic.
Officials had phoned the wife and mother of Abdirahman JA, it said in security circles. The women live in Somalia. They did not give any indications of an Islamist attitude towards YES. In the Somali’s room in a Würzburg homeless shelter, there was also no evidence of an Islamist motive. Reading out JA’s two cell phones did not yield any new information either. Security experts say that if Somali were extremist, they would likely have watched Islamist videos. But there is no evidence. JA could not yet be heard. His lawyer says the client’s mental state is too bad for that.

Islamist praises perpetrators from Würzburg

In the Islamist scene, the response to the attack is minimal. Security circles said a sympathizer of the Somali terrorist militia Al Shabaab welcomed the Würzburg act in English on the Internet. The man referred to an older Al Shabaab video calling for attacks by individual perpetrators. But even this story is not evidence of a political motive of JA for the investigators. The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office said that an expert had been commissioned to examine the perpetrator psychiatrically. Before the crime, the Somali had shown aggressive behavior.

In Dresden, the public prosecutor and the police are also investigating a knife attack with an unclear background. Three days after the attack in Würzburg, an Eritrean man threatened two children in the Saxon capital with a machete and a long knife. Two Iraqis intervened, the Eritrean shouted “Allahu akbar” and stabbed an Iraqi in the leg. The perpetrator then fled, but the police were soon able to arrest him. The Eritrean may have imitated the act of Würzburg. The investigators see no Islamist motive in the Dresden case so far, but do not want to rule out anything. Like the one in Würzburg, the perpetrator is presumably undergoing a psychiatric assessment.

Life imprisonment for knife attack in Sweden

Meanwhile, a Swedish court sentenced an Afghan to life imprisonment for attempted murder in a similar case. The 22-year-old injured seven men with knife wounds in the small town of Vetlanda in March. The Afghan attacked because a stranger allegedly denied the existence of God. The police initially expressed suspicions of terrorism. But the motive could not be clarified in the end. The Afghan himself spoke of mental health problems. He was examined, but no mental illness could be determined at the time of the crime.