Germany has been beset with soaring knife crimes, which dominate the news cycle nearly every day. One of the most recent ones occurred in Berlin on Wednesday, where a Lebanese national is accused of stabbing his ex-wife to death in the Zehlendorf neighborhood.
She later died in the hospital. The 50-year-old suspect has been taken into custody and has a previous history of domestic violence.
The suspect allegedly attacked the 36-year-old woman with a knife in front of her home, resulting in serious stab wounds. Rescue workers treated her on scene and later, at the hospital, she underwent emergency surgery.
Police believe the man targeted the woman, who is also Lebanese, in an “honor killing.” The two have four children together.
“As for the motive, we can also say that we assume that the perpetrator felt his honor was violated by the separation. In order to restore this, he decided to kill his ex-wife,” said public prosecutor’s spokesman Sebastian Büchner to the Berliner Zeitung.
There was a temporary restraining order on the man, but this did not stop the attack.
As in many cases involving clan members, a large contingent of people gathered at the hospital, which BZ reports numbered at least 50. However, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said: “I cannot confirm a clan connection.”
The killing follows just days after a Syrian national murdered three Germans and seriously wounded eight more during the Festival for Diversity in Solingen. The story has shone a spotlight on the record number of knife attacks occurring in Germany.
According to Berlin police, 3,482 knife attacks were recorded in the city last year. In 918 cases, people were seriously injured. Almost all of the suspects, 87 percent, were men, and more than half, 53.5 percent, did not have a German passport. Only 25 percent of Berliners do not have German citizenship, showing the disproportionately high role of foreigners in such crimes. However, many German citizens recorded in the statistics have a migrant background, which is not revealed since they have German citizenship. A Berlin prosecutor, for example, stated that 75 percent of clan gang members actually have citizenship, which means every time they commit a crime, it is recorded as “German.”
