A Berlin court has sentenced a Syrian man to 13 years in prison for stabbing a Spanish tourist at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in February 2025, reports The Jerusalem Post.
The attacker, identified under German privacy laws as 20-year-old Wassim Al M., was convicted by a district court in Berlin on charges including attempted murder and attempted membership in a foreign terrorist organisation.
According to German media reports, the man told police after his arrest that he had wanted to kill Jews. Authorities said he arrived in Germany in 2023 as an unaccompanied minor and later applied for asylum. During questioning, he indicated that anger over the war in Gaza had motivated the attack.
The victim, a Spanish tourist visiting the Holocaust memorial, suffered severe injuries after being slashed in the neck and face. He was hospitalised, placed in a coma, and remains unable to work, the court heard.
During the arrest, investigators said the suspect made a gesture associated with the Islamic State, which the judges cited as evidence when assessing his motives.
Although the attacker expressed regret during the trial, the court reportedly questioned the sincerity of his remorse. Prosecutors ultimately did not seek a life sentence after the victim requested that the defendant eventually be able to rebuild his life.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, located in central Berlin, commemorates the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The site consists of 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid across a large public space and is one of Germany’s most prominent Holocaust remembrance monuments.
The Memorial has previously been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and has periodically been at the centre of debates about appropriate behaviour at Holocaust remembrance sites.
photo credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
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