A court in Germany has sentenced a 26-year-old Syrian man to 11 years in prison for stabbing a former friend around a dozen times in a frenzied attack inside a busy shopping mall, ruling that jealousy and a perceived loss of honor motivated the killing.

The Hamburg Regional Court found the defendant guilty of killing the 25-year-old victim at the Phoenix Center shopping mall in Hamburg-Harburg on June 26 last year. According to a court spokeswoman, cited by Tageblatt, the man confessed to the attack, in which the victim, who worked at a snack bar in the mall, was stabbed at least 11 times in front of numerous shoppers, including families with young children.

The court heard how the accused and the victim used to be good friends, but that relationship deteriorated over time due to the defendant’s increasingly erratic behavior, problems with aggression and substance abuse, and unfounded accusations that the victim had been sleeping with his wife and was the biological father of his children.

A day before the attack, the victim had successfully managed to obtain a restraining order against the Syrian national, but this didn’t deter the attacker, who visited the snack bar in the mall to confront him, equipped with a nine-centimeter blade.

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The court heard how the victim was stabbed multiple times in the chest and abdomen before collapsing in front of several witnesses. He later died on his way to the hospital.

Upon his arrest, a psychological evaluation was undertaken, which concluded that the defendant suffered from mental illness, though the court rejected this as a full defense to admonish his criminal responsibility.

Judges did, however, take this into account upon sentencing. “Without the illness, the court would have convicted him of murder, and it would have resulted in a life sentence,” a court spokesperson said.

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The court concluded that the defendant’s jealousy and anger escalated to the point that he decided to kill his former friend, even recording two videos announcing his intentions, although it remains unclear whether those recordings were ever made public.

During his sentencing, the Syrian apologized to his victim’s brother, and vowed to better himself in prison by improving his German and pursuing vocational training.