Overview

• Five months after the February stabbing at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office charged the 19-year-old Syrian refugee with attempted murder, dangerous bodily harm and attempted membership in a terrorist organisation.
• Prosecutors say the suspect acted out of radical-Islamist and antisemitic convictions tied to Islamic State ideology.
• He was detained hours after the attack clutching a bloodied knife and found with a Koran, a prayer rug and a note citing Quranic verses in his backpack.
• The suspect remains in pretrial detention as the State Protection Senate at the Berlin Kammergericht prepares to set a trial date.
• The case highlights Germany’s emphasis on countering lone-actor threats using simple weapons, which the Interior Ministry has identified as Europe’s main Islamist terror risk.