A passenger is stabbed from behind and randomly, for no reason, no reason. This incredible crime in the middle of everyday life points to a bigger problem, says Gunnar Schupelius.
It’s your worst nightmare: you’re waiting for the subway and you get a knife in the back.
That’s what happened last Tuesday at Ostkreuz station. The 29-year-old Mouhammed N. from Iraq crosses the platform at 6.40 a.m. He’s holding a knife, the blade pointing backwards. He approaches a 46-year-old passenger whom he does not know and who does not see him coming and rams the knife into his body.
The seriously injured man escapes to the railway security staff, who are able to arrest the perpetrator. The knife is in the track bed.
When the police arrive, they find out that Mouhammed N. is urgently wanted with five (!) arrest warrants. He was convicted five times, including four for theft.
One sentence was 600 and one 2380 euros fine, another six months and the fourth eight months in prison. The fifth verdict related to drugs: again a fine.
Mouhammed N. kept disappearing. The public prosecutor’s office issued arrest warrants, but the police did not execute them, either because they did not find Mouhammed N. or because they did not look for him at all. This question is open.
We know nothing about the 46-year-old man who was stabbed in the back by Mouhammed N. The police did not provide any information during the investigation.
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Hopefully he will survive the attack, but he will probably never live the same way again. Such trauma is difficult to process. And that’s why we should pay attention to this raid.
The opposite has happened. The act was totally lost. How is that possible? Are we so jaded that we shrug when a person falls victim to such a crime in the ordinary course of life? That can not be. We must scare.
And we raise questions: Why wasn’t Mouhammed N. caught even though there were five arrest warrants? Who keeps track of asylum seekers who stray?
We can philosophize why Mouhammed stabbed N. Has he radicalized himself as an Islamist, was he mentally ill, did he take drugs or all of them together? That won’t help us.
How do we deal with the fact that people come into our country who are marked by violence and become violent themselves? Their trail is lost here and they only reappear when they wreak havoc.
That’s not how it works. We have to be honest: Do we want to continue to take in people who are in need in the future? That will be difficult if we continue to refuse checks on entry. And if we don’t deport criminals, it will be impossible. Problems are not solved by silencing them.
Is Gunnar Schupelius right? Call: 030/2591 73153 or email: [email protected]
