A local politician was attacked in Mannheim, Germany, five days after a police officer was fatally stabbed in the city’s market square.
The victim, a candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, sustained cuts in the attack, according to the German press agency DPA.
The incident occurred on Tuesday evening, near the site of Friday’s deadly attack on organizers of a rally against radical Islam, which resulted in the death of a 29-year-old police officer.
The politician was hospitalized but did not suffer life-threatening injuries.
The local AfD association reported that the candidate, identified as Heinrich Koch, 62, was attacked after chasing a man who was tearing down election posters.
Senior AfD politicians confirmed Koch was running in this weekend’s municipal election in Mannheim.
Police in Baden-Württemberg arrested a 25-year-old suspect, who was then taken to a psychiatric hospital due to evident signs of mental illness.
Authorities stressed there was no concrete evidence the suspect knew the victim was an AfD politician.
This attack followed the detention of an Afghan asylum seeker suspected of repeatedly stabbing a police officer, who later died in hospital.
Five others were wounded during preparations for a rally opposing radical Islam. The 25-year-old suspect arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2013 and has two children.
The incident led the German government to consider resuming deportations to Afghanistan, which were halted when the Taliban regained power three years ago.
The violence in Mannheim comes as Germans prepare to vote in European Parliament and municipal elections.
The AfD is challenging the centre-left Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz for second place, despite the party’s candidates being embroiled in multiple scandals.
Markus Frohnmaier, a top AfD official in Baden-Württemberg, expressed shock and dismay at the incident.
Similar attacks have occurred across Germany ahead of Sunday’s elections. Matthias Ecke, a candidate from Scholz’s party, was seriously injured in Dresden, and a female Greens politician was also attacked there.
Berlin senator Franziska Giffey, a former minister in Scholz’s party, was struck on the head and neck while visiting a library in the capital last month.
Mannheim’s mayor, Christian Specht, condemned the attack as abhorrent, stating, “The hatred and willingness to use violence that is currently erupting in our society is intolerable.”
Source-BBC
