Suspect held over Dresden murder is Isis recruiter

October 22, 2020

A failed asylum seeker and Islamic State recruiter from Syria has been arrested on suspicion of stabbing a German tourist to death in Dresden.

The suspect, identified by local media as Abdullah al-HH, 20, is accused of having used a large kitchen knife to attack two men in their fifties as they walked through the city’s old town.

Both victims were seriously injured and one of them, a 55-year-old from Krefeld, in the Rhineland, later died in hospital. Their attacker fled the scene and remained at large for more than a fortnight before police made an arrest on Tuesday evening, apparently following traces of DNA that had been left on the murder weapon.

“Investigations have shown that the dreadful killing in Dresden had an Islamist background,” Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said. “Islamist terror is a major, enduring threat to our society that we have to tackle determinedly.”

The Dresden stabbing “draws attention, once again, to the dangers of Islamist violence” said Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.

The authorities said the suspect had an extensive criminal record, including charges of soliciting support for a foreign terrorist organization, and charges of bodily injury, and making threats. The alleged attacker came to Germany in 2015 and applied for asylum, according to Der Spiegel magazine. Even though his application was rejected, he has managed to stay in Germany under the so-called “tolerated” status which German authorities give to rejected asylum seekers who cannot be deported.