Syrian refugee charged with attempted murder for February stabbing at Berlin Holocaust Memorial

A Syrian man who allegedly supports the Islamic State group has been charged with attempted murder over the stabbing of a Spanish tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, German prosecutors say.

The suspect, a refugee partially identified as Wassim Al M., is said to have seriously injured the 30-year-old man at the landmark in the German capital in February.

The suspect “shares the ideology of the foreign terrorist organization Islamic State” and has “radical Islamist and antisemitic views,” federal prosecutors say in a statement.

He had traveled from the eastern city of Leipzig, where he had been living, to Berlin to target “alleged infidels, whom he regarded as representatives of a Western form of society that he rejected,” prosecutors say.

Shortly before the stabbing, the suspect, who was 19 at the time, sent a photo of himself to IS members so the group could claim responsibility for the attack, they say.

The tourist, from the Basque Country in northern Spain, was wounded in the neck during the attack at Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe near the Brandenburg Gate and the US embassy.

The suspect, who was arrested shortly after the attack and is in pre-trial detention, has also been charged with causing serious bodily harm and attempted membership of a foreign terrorist organization.