Crime: Knife attacks in fan zone – attempted murder charge

Because he is said to have injured and chased people with a knife during the public viewing of the European Championship game between Turkey and the Czech Republic in Stuttgart, the Stuttgart public prosecutor’s office has charged a 25-year-old man with six counts of attempted murder. The Syrian national is said to have targeted Turkish football fans in order to kill them out of hatred for people with Turkish citizenship, the prosecution further announced.

All of those attacked wore fan symbols of the Turkish national team, but according to the public prosecutor’s office, only some were Turkish citizens. Contrary to what the accused believed, no one was killed. The accused has been in custody since the incident on June 26th.

Specifically, the public prosecutor’s office accuses him of the following: He is said to have stabbed a 38-year-old man, who was wearing a Turkish national team jersey, from behind with a folding knife in the fan zone. He didn’t expect an attack. He was seriously injured.

When a 37-year-old man tried to pull the accused away from the 38-year-old, the Syrian is said to have also tried to injure the 37-year-old with the knife. However, he was able to avoid it.

The accused is then said to have pursued a 30-year-old with the knife, but not reached him. He is also said to have injured three men aged 60, 21 and 19 with stab and cut injuries to the upper body area.

Football fans and police officers who arrived disarmed the man. There was tumult. However, mass panic was prevented by the quick intervention of officials. The palace square was closed off for a short time.

According to police crime statistics, the number of knife attacks rose from 2,727 cases in 2022 to 3,104 cases last year. During the same period, the proportion of suspects without German citizenship increased significantly from 1,333 to 1,612 – that is more than 55 percent of all suspects. Around 41 percent of foreign suspects are younger than 21 years old.