Berlin police have arrested a Syrian national suspected of being an accomplice in the stabbing of a Spanish tourist at the Holocaust Memorial last year. The suspect, identified only as Khalaf A. under German privacy rules, is accused of being an accessory to attempted murder and bodily harm.
Federal prosecutors said Khalaf A. spent the afternoon before the attack on February 21, 2025, with the convicted attacker, Wassim Al M., and encouraged him to carry out his plan. Wassim Al M., also a Syrian citizen, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in March for attempted murder and attempted membership in a foreign terrorist organization.
The Berlin district court found that Wassim Al M. traveled from Leipzig to Berlin to commit an attack in the name of the Islamic State group. He chose the Holocaust Memorial because he believed he would find people of Jewish faith there. He stabbed the Spanish tourist in the throat before shouting 'Allahu akbar'.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a field of 2,700 gray concrete slabs near the Brandenburg Gate, honors the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. The stabbing occurred two days before a German national election in which migration had become a central issue following a series of deadly attacks involving immigrants.
