A man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder and attempted murder of two people on a regional train in Germany last year.
The 34-year-old had stabbed two people and seriously injured four others on a train in Brokstedt in northern Germany in January 2023, according to the district court in Itzehoe.
The court also determined the severity of the guilt on Wednesday, which means that a suspended sentence after 15 years is practically impossible.
The judgement is not yet final.
The defendant, only known as Ibrahim A under Germany's strict privacy laws, pulled out a kitchen knife on the regional train on the journey from Kiel to Hamburg on the afternoon of January 25, 2023 and suddenly started attacking passengers.
A 17-year-old girl and her 19-year-old male friend died. Four other passengers were seriously injured. The perpetrator was eventually overpowered by passengers. The offence caused horror nationwide.
On the question of culpability, the court followed the expert opinion of psychiatrist Arno Deister. The professor had diagnosed psychotic symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the accused, but not psychosis.
"I don't see any impairment of the ability to understand," he said. There was also no loss of control, according to the psychiatrist.
The verdict was in line with the sentence demanded by the public prosecutor. The man's defence lawyer, on the other hand, had pleaded for his client to be placed in a forensic psychiatric ward.
Until a few days before the attack, Ibrahim A had been in custody in Hamburg for another offence. The man, who had come to Germany from the Gaza Strip, had a tolerated status and had travelled to Kiel for an appointment with the immigration authorities.
The public prosecutor's office is convinced that he acted out of frustration.