Palestinian accused of killing man in Germany said he targeted a 'rich Jew'

Witness says 31-year-old suspect wanted to kill real estate investor he thought was Jewish, saying his people ‘destroyed my homeland’

JTA — A Palestinian accused of killing a German man said he had targeted a “rich Jew,” a witness said during the murder trial.

The 31-year-old Palestinian man, identified in court as Iyad B., is accused along with an accomplice of strangling real estate investor Michael Reicher in November. The witness, a barber, said the accused said he had targeted a “rich Jew” whose people “destroyed my homeland,” according to a report in the local newspaper Shwartzwalder Bote.

The case is being heard in the town of Horb am Neckar in the southern German state of Baden-Wurttemberg.

It is not clear whether Reicher, 57, was actually Jewish.

Iyad’s alleged accomplice was a Syrian refugee, Mohammed Omran Albakr, 28, who allegedly came up with the plan to attack and rob Reicher, with whom he had business dealings.

Iyad had not said anything to the witness about Reicher being killed as part of the attack. Reicher was ill with a lung condition.