Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – After the deadly knife attack in a regional train from Kiel to Hamburg, the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament discussed the consequences. At a special session of the legal committee on Tuesday, SPD MP Hartmut Ganzke brought up the idea of instructing the public prosecutor’s office to only charge knife attacks in the regional courts in future.
These are considered dangerous physical injuries with up to ten years imprisonment, but the district courts can only pronounce a maximum of four years. The suspected knife attacker von Brokstedt had been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment on probation by the Euskirchen district court for an attack “with a sharp-edged object”.
From his point of view, this is illegal and a violation of the Courts Constitution Act, which would impermissibly restrict the public prosecutor’s decision-making leeway, said NRW Justice Minister Benjamin Limbach (Greens).
The legal committee chairman Werner Pfeil (FDP) asked whether, in view of similar attacks, an image of the perpetrator emerged, namely single men from war zones with psychological problems, to whom offers of help might have to be made.
The picture of the perpetrator is not so clear, answered Undersecretary Christian Burr. But the black-green coalition had agreed to put the existing regulations on social rehabilitation to the test.
SPD and FDP had jointly requested the special session. Background: The suspect (33) had lived in NRW for years – and had committed crimes there several times.
In the attack on the regional train from Kiel to Hamburg near Brokstedt, a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old died last week. Five other people were injured. An arrest warrant has been issued for the alleged perpetrator, a 33-year-old stateless Palestinian. He is accused of two counts of treacherous murder and four counts of attempted manslaughter.