A German court has sentenced a 20-year-old Syrian man to 13 years in prison for a knife attack on a Spanish tourist at Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The assault, which took place in February 2025, was described by the court as a radical Islamist act.
The ruling was delivered by the Kammergericht, which convicted the defendant of attempted murder and attempted membership in a terrorist organisation abroad. Prosecutors had sought a life sentence, while the defence had argued for a seven-year youth sentence. The court ultimately applied adult criminal law.
According to the German Federal Prosecutor General, the man travelled from Leipzig to Berlin on 21 February 2025 with the intention of carrying out an attack in the name of the jihadist group Islamic State. Investigators said he deliberately chose the Holocaust Memorial, located near the Brandenburg Gate, because of its symbolic significance.
At the site’s field of concrete stelae, the attacker approached a 31-year-old Spanish tourist from behind and slashed his throat with a knife in what the court ruled was an attempt to kill. The victim narrowly survived the assault. More than a year later, he remains unable to work and is undergoing psychological treatment.
During the trial, the defendant admitted that he had “grabbed a person” and inflicted a severe cut. He told the court that he regretted the act almost immediately after committing it. He also claimed that his journey to Berlin had been encouraged by an online contact he had met while consuming Islamic State propaganda videos. Addressing the court, he asked for forgiveness.
The attacker, who arrived in Germany in 2023 as an unaccompanied minor and had been living in accommodation in Leipzig, surrendered to authorities around two and a half hours after the attack. He has remained in pre-trial detention since his arrest.
The Holocaust Memorial in central Berlin commemorates the six million Jews murdered by Nazi Germany and is one of the city’s most visited sites, attracting large numbers of tourists each year. The court concluded that the perpetrator had deliberately selected the location for the attack because of its connection to Jewish remembrance.
