FRANKFURT: A Syrian man who allegedly supports the Daesh group has been charged with attempted murder over the stabbing of a Spanish tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The suspect, a refugee partially identified as Wassim Al M., is said to have seriously injured the 30-year-old man at the landmark in the German capital in February.
It was one of a series of attacks blamed on foreign nationals that fueled a bitter debate about immigration in the run-up to Germany’s general election.
The suspect “shares the ideology of the foreign terrorist organization Islamic State (IS)” and has “radical Islamist and antisemitic views,” federal prosecutors said in a statement.
He had traveled from the eastern city of Leipzig, where he had been living, to Berlin to target “alleged infidels, whom he regarded as representatives of a Western form of society that he rejected,” prosecutors said.
Shortly before the stabbing, the suspect, who was 19 at the time, sent a photo of himself to IS members so the group could claim responsibility for the attack, they said.
The tourist, from the Basque Country in northern Spain, was wounded in the neck during the attack at Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a somber grid of concrete steles located near the Brandenburg Gate and the US embassy.
The suspect, who was arrested shortly after the attack and is in pre-trial detention, has also been charged with causing serious bodily harm and attempted membership of a foreign terrorist organization.
Officials said previously he had arrived in Germany in 2023.
The attack was one of several which shocked Germany ahead of the general election, which saw a doubling in the vote-share for the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The election was won by the center-right CDU/CSU, which has since taken power at the head of a coalition and moved swiftly to introduce stricter curbs on immigration.
The new government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz has signalled it is trying to resume deportations to Syria, which have been suspended since 2012.
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Syrian charged over Berlin Holocaust memorial stabbing
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Syrian charged over Berlin Holocaust memorial stabbing
- The suspect, who was arrested shortly after the attack and is in pre trial detention, has also been charged with causing serious bodily harm and attempted membership of a foreign terrorist organization
Former Bolivian President Arce arrested in corruption investigation a month after leaving office
LA PAZ: Bolivian law enforcement officials on Wednesday arrested former President Luis Arce as part of a corruption investigation, opening an uncertain chapter in the country’s politics a month after the inauguration of conservative President Rodrigo Paz ended 20 years of socialist rule.
A senior official in Paz’s government, Marco Antonio Oviedo, told reporters that Arce had been arrested on charges of breach of duty and financial misconduct related to the alleged embezzlement of public funds during his stint as economy minister in the government of charismatic former leader Evo Morales (2006-2019).
A special police force dedicated to fighting corruption confirmed to The Associated Press that Arce was in custody at the unit’s headquarters in Bolivia’s capital of La Paz.
Officials described Arce’s arrest as proof of the new government’s commitment to fighting graft at the highest levels in fulfillment of its flagship campaign promise.
“It is the decision of this government to fight corruption, and we will arrest all those responsible for this massive embezzlement,” Oviedo said.
But underlining the country’s polarization, Arce’s allies said his arrest was unjustified and smacked of political persecution.
Accusations of theft from a fund for rural peasants
Authorities accused Arce and other officials of diverting an estimated $700 million from a state-run fund dedicated to supporting the Indigenous people and peasant farmers who formed the backbone of Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party. As Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, Morales transformed the country’s power structure and gave Indigenous peoplemore sway than ever.
Serving on the board of directors of the Indigenous Peasant Development Fund from 2006 to 2017, Arce was in charge of allocating funds to social development projects in rural areas. During that time, officials allege, Arce siphoned off some of that money for personal expenses.
“Arce was identified as the main person responsible for this vast economic damage,” said Oviedo.
Bolivia’s attorney general, Roger Mariaca, told local media that Arce had invoked his right to remain silent during police questioning.
He said Arce would remain in police custody overnight before being brought before a judge to determine whether he will remain detained pending trial. The charges against Arce carry a maximum sentence of 4-6 years in prison.
An ex-president allegedly grabbed from the street
Arce’s key ally and former government minister, Maria Nela Prada, insisted on the ex-president’s innocence and denounced the corruption scandal as a case of political persecution.
Although the prosecution said it issued an arrest warrant, she said Arce was not notified of the case before he was bundled into a minivan with tinted windows in an upscale La Paz neighborhood on Wednesday and brought in for interrogation.
Arce had been walking along the cafe-lined streets of Sopocachi after teaching an economics class at a major public university, Prada said, and managed to tell her of his arrest before losing communication. A police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that account of events.
“This is a total abuse of power,” Prada said, banging furiously on the doors of the police headquarters where Arce was being held.
Mariaca, the prosecutor, promised the case was about nothing more than tackling graft in Bolivia.
“This is not persecution, nor is it a political act,” he said.
Paz swept to victory in October elections on a wave of public outrage over the unmitigated shambles that Arce’s administration bequeathed its successors, including sky-high inflation, a shortage of fuel and empty state coffers.
Critical to his popularity was his running mate, the straight-talking, TikTok-savvy former police Capt. Edman Lara, who achieved celebrity status when he denounced high-ranking police officers for corruption.
Courts not neutral arbiters
Experts long have noted that Bolivia’s brittle institutional framework fosters corruption, and that its politicized judiciary often lets those in power off the hook — whether on the left or right of the political spectrum.
Morales, who guided the country through an era of economic growth and shrinking inequality before his fraught 2019 ouster, was accused of stacking the constitutional court and bending the laws to stay in power.
When he resigned in the wake of mass protests over his disputed reelection to a fourth term, the right-wing interim government that took over issued arrest warrants for Morales and his officials on charges ranging from terrorism to corruption.
Then Arce won the 2020 elections and went on to target his own political rivals.
Former interim president Jeanine Añez was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges tied to her 2019 takeover and other right-wing opposition leaders landed in jail. Judges even went after Morales, Arce’s mentor-turned-rival, who remains hunkered down in Bolivia’s remote tropics evading an arrest warrant related to statutory rape.
Shifting political winds
With the pendulum now swinging back to the right, Añez and many of her allies have walked free from prison. President Paz has set to work undoing the leftist policies of Arce and Morales.
Celebrating Arce’s arrest on social media, Vice President Lara warned that the ex-president was just the first felled by what would become a wave of anti-corruption cases against former officials.
“Those who have stolen from this country will return every last cent,” Lara said, ending his message by wishing “death to the corrupt.”
A senior official in Paz’s government, Marco Antonio Oviedo, told reporters that Arce had been arrested on charges of breach of duty and financial misconduct related to the alleged embezzlement of public funds during his stint as economy minister in the government of charismatic former leader Evo Morales (2006-2019).
A special police force dedicated to fighting corruption confirmed to The Associated Press that Arce was in custody at the unit’s headquarters in Bolivia’s capital of La Paz.
Officials described Arce’s arrest as proof of the new government’s commitment to fighting graft at the highest levels in fulfillment of its flagship campaign promise.
“It is the decision of this government to fight corruption, and we will arrest all those responsible for this massive embezzlement,” Oviedo said.
But underlining the country’s polarization, Arce’s allies said his arrest was unjustified and smacked of political persecution.
Accusations of theft from a fund for rural peasants
Authorities accused Arce and other officials of diverting an estimated $700 million from a state-run fund dedicated to supporting the Indigenous people and peasant farmers who formed the backbone of Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party. As Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, Morales transformed the country’s power structure and gave Indigenous peoplemore sway than ever.
Serving on the board of directors of the Indigenous Peasant Development Fund from 2006 to 2017, Arce was in charge of allocating funds to social development projects in rural areas. During that time, officials allege, Arce siphoned off some of that money for personal expenses.
“Arce was identified as the main person responsible for this vast economic damage,” said Oviedo.
Bolivia’s attorney general, Roger Mariaca, told local media that Arce had invoked his right to remain silent during police questioning.
He said Arce would remain in police custody overnight before being brought before a judge to determine whether he will remain detained pending trial. The charges against Arce carry a maximum sentence of 4-6 years in prison.
An ex-president allegedly grabbed from the street
Arce’s key ally and former government minister, Maria Nela Prada, insisted on the ex-president’s innocence and denounced the corruption scandal as a case of political persecution.
Although the prosecution said it issued an arrest warrant, she said Arce was not notified of the case before he was bundled into a minivan with tinted windows in an upscale La Paz neighborhood on Wednesday and brought in for interrogation.
Arce had been walking along the cafe-lined streets of Sopocachi after teaching an economics class at a major public university, Prada said, and managed to tell her of his arrest before losing communication. A police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that account of events.
“This is a total abuse of power,” Prada said, banging furiously on the doors of the police headquarters where Arce was being held.
Mariaca, the prosecutor, promised the case was about nothing more than tackling graft in Bolivia.
“This is not persecution, nor is it a political act,” he said.
Paz swept to victory in October elections on a wave of public outrage over the unmitigated shambles that Arce’s administration bequeathed its successors, including sky-high inflation, a shortage of fuel and empty state coffers.
Critical to his popularity was his running mate, the straight-talking, TikTok-savvy former police Capt. Edman Lara, who achieved celebrity status when he denounced high-ranking police officers for corruption.
Courts not neutral arbiters
Experts long have noted that Bolivia’s brittle institutional framework fosters corruption, and that its politicized judiciary often lets those in power off the hook — whether on the left or right of the political spectrum.
Morales, who guided the country through an era of economic growth and shrinking inequality before his fraught 2019 ouster, was accused of stacking the constitutional court and bending the laws to stay in power.
When he resigned in the wake of mass protests over his disputed reelection to a fourth term, the right-wing interim government that took over issued arrest warrants for Morales and his officials on charges ranging from terrorism to corruption.
Then Arce won the 2020 elections and went on to target his own political rivals.
Former interim president Jeanine Añez was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges tied to her 2019 takeover and other right-wing opposition leaders landed in jail. Judges even went after Morales, Arce’s mentor-turned-rival, who remains hunkered down in Bolivia’s remote tropics evading an arrest warrant related to statutory rape.
Shifting political winds
With the pendulum now swinging back to the right, Añez and many of her allies have walked free from prison. President Paz has set to work undoing the leftist policies of Arce and Morales.
Celebrating Arce’s arrest on social media, Vice President Lara warned that the ex-president was just the first felled by what would become a wave of anti-corruption cases against former officials.
“Those who have stolen from this country will return every last cent,” Lara said, ending his message by wishing “death to the corrupt.”
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