Germany blocks deportation of Würzburg attacker to Somalia

[Deeq A.]

MUNICH, Germany — German prosecutors have blocked the deportation of the Würzburg attacker to Somalia, officials confirmed. The man, who killed three people in a 2021 stabbing rampage, will remain in psychiatric care indefinitely over fears he might return to Germany.

The Attorney General’s Office in Munich announced on October 31 that releasing the man, Abdirahman Jibril A., for deportation is not possible “for the protection of the general public.”

An expert report found a “high risk of his re-entry to Germany” if he were deported. Prosecutors added that authorities in Somalia would likely release him, creating a risk of “further serious criminal offences.”

The Würzburg attack took place on June 25, 2021. Abdirahman Jibril A. took a large knife from a department store, killed three women (aged 24, 49, and 82), and wounded nine other people.

In July 2022, a court found him not criminally responsible due to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and ordered his indefinite commitment to a psychiatric facility, according to court records.

Attacker ‘remains a danger’

He will remain in the forensic psychiatric ward at a hospital in Lohr, near Würzburg. The Munich prosecutor’s office said he is still considered a danger to society.

The Bavarian State Office for Asylum and Repatriation had explored the possibility of deporting the Somali man. That move required the prosecutor’s consent, which has now been formally denied.

His court-appointed defense lawyer, Hanjo Schrepfer, told the German press agency dpa that he considers the decision “correct” and “appropriate.”

Schrepfer said the progress of the man’s therapy must be monitored. He added that, “strictly speaking,” therapy cannot yet start because the defendant “still has not admitted guilt.”

The 2021 attack

The rampage began around 5:00 p.m. inside a Woolworth on Würzburg’s Barbarossaplatz. The attacker, then 31, took a large kitchen knife from a shelf and stabbed shoppers.

He killed three women: Steffi W., 24, who was buying a dress for a friend’s wedding; Christiane H., 49, who died shielding her 11-year-old daughter; and Johanna H., 82, who reportedly tried to intervene.

He then left the store and attacked people on the street, wounding nine others, several of them life-threateningly. Witnesses said he yelled “Allahu akbar,” prompting initial fears of a terrorist motive.

Bystanders chased him with chairs and sticks, cornering him. A police officer shot him in the leg and arrested him.

Attacker’s background

Abdirahman Jibril A. arrived in Germany from Italy in May 2015 during the European refugee crisis. He applied for asylum, saying Islamist militias in Somalia persecuted him.

Authorities denied his asylum request but granted subsidiary protection — a status for people who do not qualify for asylum yet face serious harm if returned.

Before the attack, he lived in a homeless shelter in Würzburg and had a record of violent altercations and erratic behavior. He had threatened others with knives several times. Months before the killings, a hospital briefly committed him to a psychiatric ward and later released him.

At his 2022 trial, prosecutors and court experts said they found no evidence of terrorist links. Assessors testified that he had paranoid schizophrenia and experienced “auditory hallucinations” or “internal voices” that commanded him to kill.

The court ruled him not criminally responsible and ordered indefinite commitment to a secure psychiatric facility rather than prison.

This week’s decision by prosecutors blocks his deportation and keeps him in German psychiatric care based on the ongoing risk assessment.

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