2017 Kandel stabbing attack

Last updated
2017 Kandel stabbing attack
DateDecember 27, 2017 (2017-12-27)
Location Flag of Germany.svg Kandel, Rhineland-Palatinate
Type stabbing
Deaths1
ConvictedAbdul Mobin Dawodzai
Verdict Guilty
Convictions Murder, bodily harm
Sentence8 years, 6 months

The 2017 Kandel stabbing attack was a fatal stabbing on 27 December 2017 in the town of Kandel in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. An Afghan asylum seeker, who had been denied refugee status, was charged with the murder of his 15-year-old German former girlfriend, allegedly after she ended the relationship. The case was reported in the national and international press and sparked a political debate about the German refugee policies, especially how to deal with underage unaccompanied refugees. [1] [2] [3]

Kandel Place in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

Kandel is a town in the Germersheim district of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, near the border with France and approximately 18 km north-west of Karlsruhe, and 15 km south-east of Landau.

Rhineland-Palatinate State in Germany

Rhineland-Palatinate is a state of Germany.

Germany Federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north and the Alps, Lake Constance and the High Rhine to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.

Contents

Incident

Mia Valentin was murdered on 27 December 2017 in a drugstore in the town of Kandel. [4] The murderer, Abdul Dawodzai, a former refugee claimant from Afghanistan, had been placed in the same class as Valentin. [5] Dawoodzai and Valentin had had a relationship for several months. In the beginning of December 2017, after she had ended the relationship, he allegedly began to threaten Valentin. She and her parents made complaints to the police in mid-December. On the morning of 27 December 2017, police officers had visited the perpetrator. Later that day, he stabbed Valentin after he followed her into the store, using a 20 cm knife. She died shortly afterwards in hospital. [3] [6] The suspect allegedly bought the knife at the same store just before he attacked her. [7]

On 15 December 2017, the victim's parents had filed a criminal complaint, alleging that suspect had slandered and threatened their daughter. [8]

Perpetrator

The perpetrator was named as Abdul Mobin Dawodzai from Afghanistan. He came to Germany in April 2016 and initially resided in Frankfurt, later in a center for young refugees in Germersheim. His asylum claim was rejected in February 2017, but he was not deported. [9] The parents of the victim strongly doubted that he was only 15 years old, so an investigation was launched to determine his true age. [1] The perpetrator had been known to the police for a serious bodily injury crime committed in school. [3] [6] [10]

Frankfurt Place in Hesse, Germany

Frankfurt is a metropolis and the largest city of the German federal state of Hesse, and its 746,878 (2017) inhabitants make it the fifth-largest city in Germany, after Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne. On the River Main, it forms a continuous conurbation with the neighbouring city of Offenbach am Main, and its urban area has a population of 2.3 million. The city is at the centre of the larger Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, which has a population of 5.5 million and is Germany's second-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr Region. Since the enlargement of the European Union in 2013, the geographic centre of the EU is about 40 km (25 mi) to the east of Frankfurt's central business district. Like France and Franconia, the city is named after the Franks. Frankfurt is the largest city in the Rhine Franconian dialect area.

Germersheim Place in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

Germersheim is a town in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, of around 20,000 inhabitants. It is also the seat of the Germersheim district. The neighboring towns and cities are Speyer, Landau, Philippsburg, Karlsruhe and Wörth.

The suspect was charged with murder, [10] and underwent a medical examination in response to allegations that he misstated his age. [1] The age assessment was carried out by evaluating X-rays of hand, clavicle and dentition of the suspect. The findings of the examination were presented by the State's attorney in February 2018. These findings concluded that the suspect was at least 17 years and six months old, but most likely around 20. [11]

X-ray Röntgen radiation

X-rays make up X-radiation, a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz (3×1016 Hz to 3×1019 Hz) and energies in the range 100 eV to 100 keV. X-ray wavelengths are shorter than those of UV rays and typically longer than those of gamma rays. In many languages, X-radiation is referred to as Röntgen radiation, after the German scientist Wilhelm Röntgen, who discovered it on November 8, 1895. He named it X-radiation to signify an unknown type of radiation. Spelling of X-ray(s) in the English language includes the variants x-ray(s), xray(s), and X ray(s).

A state's attorney or state attorney is a lawyer representing the interests of the state in a legal proceeding, typically as a prosecutor. It is an official title in the United States, sometimes appointed but most commonly an elected official serving as the chief law enforcement officer of his or her county, circuit, or district. The offices of district attorney, commonwealth's attorney, county attorney, county prosecutor, or prosecuting attorney are more frequently the case in the United States although South Carolina uses the term solicitor. The state of Florida and other countries also use or used the term state's attorney, like the Boer republics of the Orange Free State (1854–1902) and the South African Republic (1852–1902) in South Africa. In these cases the position corresponded to that of the attorney general in the British judicial system. It is used within the Attorney-General's Department of Sri Lanka.

During the trial he was tried as a minor. Dawodzai's lawyer denied he was older than 20. The prosecution called for a 10 year sentence while the defense attorney asked for a 7.5 year sentence. [12]

On 3 September 2018, Dawodzai was sentenced to 8 years and 6 months in prison for murder of Valentin. Maximilian Ender, Dawodzai's lawyer called the sentenced "correct" and said that his client had accepted the verdict. [12] Locals protested outside the court calling the sentence of 8.5 years for murder too short. [12]

Aftermath

Political debate

The murder reignited German public debate over refugee policy, in particular, debate over abuse of refugee policy by adult men claiming to be child refugees. [13] [1] [14] [15]

Several politicians of FDP, CDU, CSU, AfD, SPD and also Green parties demanded a better control of young unaccompanied refugees as a consequence of the case. The authorities of Rhineland-Palatinate began an investigation to determine consequences. [3] Julia Klöckner (CDU) offered condolences to the parents of Mia Valentin and demanded an investigation, as did Eva Högl (SPD). [3] Stephan Mayer (CSU) demanded a hardened course against underage offenders. [3] Alexander Gauland (AfD) stated that the German policies of open borders were responsible for the case. [3] Konstantin von Notz (The Greens) demanded a better prevention and a closer look to the underage unaccompanied refugees. [3] The Interior Minister of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann (CSU) demanded an age test for all underage refugees who were not clearly recognizable as children. [16] FDP chairman Christian Lindner suggested faster deportation of underage criminal asylum seekers. [17]

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Minister President of Saarland spoke out in favor of obligatory age tests of young refugees, [18] as did the Deutscher Städte- und Gemeindebund. [19] Official investigations in some German states showed, that at least 30 to 50 percent of the age records of alleged underage refugees are wrong. [19]

Unlike other German TV news broadcasters, news magazine Tagesschau did not report the case at first, later explaining that it does not normally report on domestic crime, especially where children are involved. After criticism in social media, the paper published a report. [20]

Protests

Two months after the attack there were demonstrations in the town, involving over a thousand people. [21] The local authorities claimed that most of the anti-immigration demonstrators were not from Kandel and that the town was being used as a "platform" by right-wingers. A separate group simultaneously demonstrated against racism. [22]

Funeral candles with pictures of Mia Valentin along with photos of Mireille B. murdered 2018 in Flensburg and Maria Ladenburger murdered in 2016 in Freiburg were placed by anti-Islamic protesters outside chancellor Angela Merkel's office in Stralsund. [23]

Kandel Is Everywhere

Following Mia's murder, an initiative entitled "Kandel Is Everywhere" took root in Germany. It has held protests, created Stolpersteine decrying the murders of Germans by foreigners, and produced a poster that went viral that includes Mia and Susanna Feldmann, under the heading “Merkel’s Stolpersteine.” [5]

Suicide

On 10 October 2019, it was announced that Abdul D. had been found dead in his cell, of apparent suicide. [24]

Trial and sentence

Because of the youth of the accused, the case was heard privately in a juvenile court. [25] Anti-immigration demonstrators assembled in the streets of Kandel in September 2018 to await the announcement of the verdict, with counter-protests from locals. [26] When the sentence of 8 years in prison for the convicted murderer was announced, Deutsche Welle noted that the social media accounts of Alternative for Germany politicians "lit up" with criticism of the brevity of the sentence, while members of the governing Social Democratic Party were silent. A political consultant said that #Kandel had enabled the right wing to "take a singular, exceptional event and "abstract" it into a national problem". [27]

Documentary The Girl and the Refugee

The documentary The Girl and the Refugee, which is Episode 5 of the series What Moves Germany, was shown on 4 June 2018 on Das Erste, a public television channel in Germany. The documentary is about the Kandel murder by stabbing of Mia Valentin, and about the attempted murder by stabbing five days earlier of a 17-year-old girl by another Afghan refugee in Darmstadt. Looking for answers, the filmmakers travel to Afghanistan where they are told that a woman who separates from her man "must be killed." The documentary is an hr-SWR co-production, directed by Christian Gropper and Kai Diezemann. [28] [29] [30] [31]

See also

Related Research Articles

Tagesschau is a German national and international television news service produced by the editorial staff of ARD-aktuell on behalf of the German public-service television network ARD.

Horst Seehofer German politician (CSU) and Federal Minister of the Interior

Horst Lorenz Seehofer is a German politician serving as Leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) from 2008 to 2019 and Minister of the Interior, Building and Community since 2018 under Chancellor Angela Merkel. From 2008 to 2018, he was Minister President of Bavaria; he also served as President of the Bundesrat between 2011 and 2012.

2015–16 New Years Eve sexual assaults in Germany

During the 2015/2016 New Year's Eve celebrations, there were mass sexual assaults, 24 alleged rapes and numerous thefts in Germany, mainly in Cologne city center. There were similar incidents at the public celebrations in Hamburg, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, Bielefeld and Frankfurt. For all of Germany, police estimated in a document leaked in 2016 that 1,200 women were sexually assaulted and that at least 2,000 men were involved, often acting in groups.

The fatal stabbing of Alexandra Mezher occurred on 25 January 2016. Mezher, a 22-year-old worker at an asylum center, of Lebanese Christian origin, was stabbed by a male asylum seeker at a refuge for unaccompanied minors in Mölndal, Sweden. The attacker, a Somalian male, was posing as an underage unaccompanied refugee claiming to be 15, but, after the attack, medical examination determined that he was at least 18 years old.

A knife attack near Munich took place on 10 May 2016 when a 27-year-old mentally disturbed man stabbed four men, one of them fatally at Grafing station in the Upper Bavarian town of Grafing, some 32 kilometres (20 mi) from Munich, southern Germany. As the knifer reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" while stabbing the random victims, first reactions of the German and international media as well as the general public suspected an Islamist attack. On his arrest shortly after the attack, the perpetrator proved to be a mentally disturbed, unemployed carpenter with drug problems and no known ties to Islamist organizations. In August 2017 the Landgericht München II ruled the man to not be criminally liable of the crime and committed him to a closed psychiatric ward.

Würzburg train attack stabbing attack which occurred on 18 July 2016

On 18 July 2016, Afghan refugee Riaz Khan Ahmadzai attacked and injured four people, two critically, on a train near Würzburg in Germany. A fifth person was injured outside. The attacker was a 17-year-old asylum seeker, armed with a knife and hatchet. The state office of criminal investigations called it a terrorist attack with an Islamist religious motive.

2016 Reutlingen knife attack

On 24 July 2016, a Syrian asylum seeker armed with a döner knife attacked his girlfriend and bystanders in Reutlingen, Germany, killing his girlfriend, a Polish woman, and wounding two other people in the forearm and head, before being struck accidentally by a car and arrested by police.

Crimes committed against and by immigrants in Germany. Crimes involving foreigners have been a longstanding theme in public debates in Germany. In November 2015, a report that was released by the Federal Criminal Police (BKA) stated that "While the number of refugees is rising very dynamically, the development of crime does not increase to the same extent." Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) noted that "refugees are on average as little or often delinquent as comparison groups of the local population." A 2018 statistical study by researchers at the University of Magdeburg using 2009-2015 data argued that, where analysis is restricted to crimes involving at least one German victim and one refugee suspect and crimes by immigrants against other immigrants are excluded, there is no relationship between the scale of refugee inflow and the crime rate. In 2018 the interior ministry under Horst Seehofer (CSU) published, for the first time, an analysis of the Federal Police Statistic, which includes all those who came via the asylum system to Germany. The report found that the immigrant group, which makes up about 2% of the overall population, contains 8.5% of all suspects, after violations against Germany's alien law are excluded.

Murder of Maria Ladenburger

Maria Ladenburger, a 19-year-old medical student from Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, was found raped and drowned on 16 October 2016 in the river Dreisam. On 3 December 2016, the Freiburg police arrested Hussein Khavari, who was identified by a hair found at the crime scene and a CCTV recording from inside a tram. DNA evidence linked him to the crime scene and he was ultimately convicted.

2016 Berlin truck attack attack at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin on 19 December 2016

On 19 December 2016, a truck was deliberately driven into the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, leaving 12 people dead and 56 others injured. One of the victims was the truck's original driver, Łukasz Urban, who was found shot dead in the passenger seat. The truck was eventually stopped by its automatic brakes. The perpetrator was Anis Amri, a Tunisian failed asylum seeker. Four days after the attack, he was killed in a shootout with police near Milan in Italy. An initial suspect was arrested and later released due to lack of evidence. The event was designated as a terrorist attack.

The Hanover stabbing that occurred on 26 February 2016 was a terrorist stabbing of a police officer in Hanover, Germany, by a 15-year-old girl. It was the first reported attack by an ISIS sympathiser in Germany.

2017 Hamburg knife attack

The 2017 Hamburg knife attack was a stabbing incident that occurred on 28 July 2017 in Hamburg, Germany.

2017 Turku attack terrorist stabbing attack in Turku, Finland, on 18 August 2017

The 2017 Turku attack took place on 18 August 2017 at around 16:02–16:05 local time (UTC+3) when 10 people were stabbed in central Turku, Southwest Finland. Two women were killed in the attack and eight people sustained injuries.

On 7 March 2018, two stabbings occurred in Vienna, Austria during the evening. A man has been arrested for both attacks. On 11 March 2018, there was a separate stabbing attack at the Embassy of Iran in the city. The Austrian government hardened its asylum policy after the attacks.

On 25 March 2018, a 24-year-old woman, Vivien K was stabbed by a Syrian migrant in Burgwedel, Germany. She received life-threatening injuries and was put into an induced coma. She woke up three days later, with broken ribs and part of her pancreas as well as her spleen removed.

2018 Münster attack attack using van in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany on 7 April 2018

On 7 April 2018, a man drove a van into people seated outside restaurants in a pedestrianised square in the old part of the German city of Münster. He killed two people and injured about 20 others, 6 seriously. Another victim died on 26 April. A Dutch victim who was in a coma after the attack died almost 4 months later on 29 July 2018.

Susanna Maria Feldmann was a 14-year-old German girl who was raped and killed on the night of 22 May 2018 in Wiesbaden. Ali Bashar Ahmad Z., a 21-year-old asylum seeker from Iraqi Kurdistan, confessed to the murder and was found guilty in July 2019 at a trial in Landgericht Wiesbaden.

2018 Chemnitz protests August 2018 extreme right-wing riots in Chemnitz, East Germany

The 2018 Chemnitz protests took place in Chemnitz, in the German state of Saxony. In the early morning of 26 August, after a festival celebrating the city's founding, a fight broke out resulting in the death of a Cuban-German man and serious injuries to two other people. Two Kurdish immigrants, one Iraqi, and one Syrian were named as suspects. The incident reignited the tensions surrounding immigration to Germany, which had been ongoing since 2015, and the European migrant crisis. In response, mass protests against immigration were ignited by groups of German civilians. The protests spawned riots and were followed by counter-demonstrations.

Mireille Bold, a 17-year-old German girl was stabbed to death on 12 March 2018 in her apartment in Flensburg, Germany by her Afghan ex-boyfriend.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Benhold, Katrin (17 January 2017). "A Girl's Killing Puts Germany's Migration Policy on Trial". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
  2. ↑ Teen suspected of fatally stabbing girl was victim's ex-boyfriend: investigator, The Local
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Die Tat und ihre Puzzlestücke, Frankfurter Allgemeine
  4. ↑ "Kandel: „Mia Valentin"-Platz gefordert!". Pi-News (in German). 29 January 2018.
  5. 1 2 Yascha Mounk (28 January 2019). "Letter from Germany January 28, 2019 Issue How a Teen's Death Has Become a Political Weapon". The Newyorker. Retrieved 11 February 2019. an Afghan refugee, Abdul Mobin Dawodzai, who had been placed in her class at school.
  6. 1 2 Polizei besuchte 15-jährigen Messerstecher kurz vor der Tat, Sueddeutsche Zeitung
  7. ↑ "Attack on Mia (15) was murder". Bild (in German). 16 January 2018. Retrieved 25 January 2018. he followed the girl and her two young companions to a supermarket. There he bought the knife, with which he later stabbed Mia.
  8. ↑ "Germany: Afghan teen in custody over fatal stabbing". AP. 28 December 2017. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
  9. ↑ JANINE WOLLBRETT (3 January 2018). "His asylum application was denied in February 2017". Bild (in German). Retrieved 25 January 2018.
  10. 1 2 "German prosecutors raise charge in teen's stabbing to murder". Fox News. AP. 17 January 2018. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  11. ↑ JANINE WOLLBRETT (20 February 2018). "His asylum application was denied in February 2017". Die Welt (in German). Retrieved 20 February 2018. Mutmaßlicher Täter von Kandel war unter 21 Jahre alt
  12. 1 2 3 (www.dw.com), Deutsche Welle. "Germany: Refugee sentenced to 8 years and 6 months for teen murder | DW | 03.09.2018". DW.COM. Retrieved 2018-09-04.
  13. ↑ Fürstenau, Marcel (29 December 2017). "Opinion: Murder of German girl will have political consequences". DW. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
  14. ↑ Warum der Tatverdächtige nicht abgeschoben wurde, Die Welt
  15. ↑ "Den Korte Avis | Afghaner dræbte Mia på 15 år – nye blodige begivenheder har forværret Angela Merkels problemer med udlændingepolitikken". denkorteavis.dk. Retrieved 2018-12-29.
  16. ↑ Herrmann fordert Alterstest bei jungen Flüchtlingen, Die Welt
  17. ↑ Lindner für Abschiebung minderjähriger krimineller Asylbewerber, Frankfurter Allgemeine
  18. ↑ Kramp-Karrenbauer will härteren Umgang mit Asylbewerbern
  19. 1 2 Viele der angeblich Minderjährigen als volljährig eingestuft, Die Welt
  20. ↑ Deshalb berichtete die "Tagesschau" zunächst nicht über Kandel, Die Welt
  21. ↑ "Nach tödlicher Messerattacke: Tausende bei Demonstrationen in Kandel". FAZ.NET (in German). 2018-03-03. ISSN   0174-4909 . Retrieved 2018-04-19.
  22. ↑ "Dueling protests in German town after teen allegedly murdered by refugee". DW. 28 January 2018. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  23. ↑ "Far-right group protests with funeral candles at Merkel's office after Freiburg murder verdict". www.thelocal.de. 2018-03-23. Retrieved 2019-02-17.
  24. ↑ "Germany: Asylum-seeker who killed Kandel teen found dead in prison cell | DW". Deutsche Welle . 2019-10-10. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  25. ↑ "Germany: Migrant jailed for murdering ex-girlfriend, 15". BBC News. 3 September 2018. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  26. ↑ "Right-wing protesters take to the streets ahead of Kandel teen murder verdict". Deutsche Welle. 2 September 2018. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  27. ↑ "Chemnitz and Kandel: How hashtags shape German politics". Deutshhe Welle. 6 September 2018. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  28. ↑ "Was Deutschland bewegt: Das Mädchen und der Flüchtling". Archived from the original on 7 June 2018. Retrieved 12 October 2019.
  29. ↑ MICHAEL HANFELD (4 June 2018). "THE GIRL AND THE REFUGEE — Are you only reading about it in the press?". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 14 June 2018. In Afghanistan, where the authors are trying to contact the family of the perpetrator of Kandel, the answers are clear. A woman who separates from her man, "must be killed,"
  30. ↑ Walter Bau (4 June 2018). "ARD DOCUMENTARY "The girl and the refugee" owes answers". Berliner Morgenpost (in German). Retrieved 14 June 2018. Two violent acts shocked the German public at the end of 2017. The alleged perpetrators were both young refugees from Afghanistan, the victims were two German girls. One was killed by a knife attack, the other seriously injured. The two cases in Darmstadt and Kandel triggered a heated public debate.
  31. ↑ CLAUDIA KAFFANKE (4 June 2018). "After Kandel: Searching for Clues in Afghanistan". Südwestrundfunk (in German). Retrieved 14 June 2018. As a Muslim, it is forbidden to kill, the TV crew explains. But women who leave their men would still have to be punished. And a villager says, "Such a woman must be killed."
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