‘No terror motive’ in knife attack on German train

Berlin, Germany AFP Thursday 1/26/2023  

German prosecutors said Thursday there was no indication of a terrorist motive in a knife attack on a train that killed two teenagers and wounded several other passengers.

A 33-year-old suspect, a stateless man of Palestinian origin, has been detained over the stabbing spree that occurred Wednesday on a train travelling between the northern cities of Hamburg and Kiel.

“There are no indications of a terrorist background,” Peter Mueller-Rakow, a spokesman for the local prosecutor’s office, told AFP.

The investigation into the attack and the suspect’s history was ongoing, he added.

Minister of the Interior, Municipal Affairs, Housing and Sport of the State of Schleswig-Holstein Sabine Suetterlin-Waack (C L) and Head of the Itzehoe Police Department Frank Matthiesen speak to the media near the train station in Brokstedt, northern Germany, on January 25, 2023, after two people were killed and several others wounded in a knife attack on a regional train between the cities of Hamburg and Kiel.  (Photo by Gregor Fischer / AFP)

A 16-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man were killed in the attack and seven people injured.

Passengers helped overpower the suspect and restrained him until police detained him at a railway station in the town of Brokstedt.

The suspect, who has no fixed abode, was only recently released from prison in connection with an assault case, police said.

© Agence France-Presse