Authorities in Berlin have detained a teenage Syrian refugee after a man was stabbed near the city’s Holocaust Memorial late Friday – as divisive rhetoric swells over Germany’s immigration policy, ahead of a consequential national election.
The 19-year-old suspect was arrested after a 30-year-old Spanish tourist was seriously injured at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin’s public prosecutor told CNN on Saturday.
According to prosecutors, he “is said to have been planning to kill Jews for several weeks.” On Friday, police launched an investigation into the attack.
He had fled to Germany as an unaccompanied minor and applied for asylum, which the country granted, the city’s public prosecutor told CNN on Saturday. The suspect was living in accommodation for refugees, in the eastern city of Leipzig.
It is the fourth recent attack allegedly perpetrated by an asylum seeker in the European nation, where far-right lawmakers have capitalized on anti-immigration sentiment in advance of countrywide polls on Sunday.
While the center-right Christian Democratic Union is likely to top the polls, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party could become the second-largest political group in the country – a first for a far-right party since the Nazi era.
Attacks on asylum-seekers and other marginalized communities have also spiked over the past year, in the face of increasingly “racist and anti-migrant narratives” in Germany, according to Human Rights Watch.
The tourist stabbed in the attack is “no longer in danger of dying,” police in Berlin declared Saturday.
“Thanks to the quick intervention of rescue workers and an emergency operation, the injured Berlin tourist is no longer in danger of dying,” police said in a post on X.
The victim was injured with a sharp object, police had told CNN. Authorities believe the suspect acted alone, based on witness testimony.
Considered one of Berlin’s most sacred sites, the memorial commemorates the 6 million Jews murdered by Nazi Germany during World War Two.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Sana Noor Haq contributed reporting.
