Chemnitz attack

At 03.15 am on Sunday 26 August, a brawl erupted in the street of Brückenstraße in Chemnitz. The fight was between people of "various nationalities". Up to 10 people were at the scene. Three of them were stabbed and seriously injured, Daniel Hillig, who was critically injured, later died in hospital. On Monday 27 August, the German prosecutors said that the victims were stabbed "several times" "with no justifiable reason".

Victims

The main victim was a 35-year-old German-Cuban carpenter, Daniel Hillig. His mother was German and his father from Cuba, and he was a father himself. He was badly wounded and died in hospital. People mourned at the location where he was stabbed, where a large memorial was set up. Two other people were seriously injured; they are Russian-German.

Hillig was apparently well-known by many people and various political groups in the city, and grew up in a Cuban migrant neighbourhood. He was a football supporter active in the Chemnitzer FC fan scene, and some have speculated that this might have contributed to the strong fan reaction and why the Chemnitzer fan club representative and local politician Peggy Schellenberg (SPD) visited the crime scene immediately on Sunday.

Suspects

Suspects include a 23-year-old Syrian and a 22-year-old Iraqi, who were taken into custody near the scene. The German Prosecutor released an arrest warrant for them on 27 August. One of these suspects was named in the days after the attack as Yousif Ibrahim Abdullah from Bashiqa, and the arrest warrant for him was leaked in multiple newspapers on August 28, which goes against German privacy regulations.

 Abdullah is accused of stabbing Hillig five times, including the fatal hits to his pericardium and lung. The other suspect was named as Alaa Sheikhi, with his accusations not revealed at the same time as his name.

Yousif Abdullah has a criminal record with six offences, which include fraud and drug possession. He was most recently sentenced in July 2018 to a suspended sentence of eight months for dangerous bodily harm.

 He came to Germany in 2015 via the Balkans and was to be deported in 2016 to Bulgaria, where he had first applied for asylum, but a six month deadline for the deportation was missed by the German authorities. His application for asylum was rejected, but he won in the legal proceedings afterwards; he used an alleged love affair as the justification for this later rejected application for asylum, saying that the brother and uncle of a girl he was in love with had beaten him up and injured him with a knife.

 Three days after the stabbing of Hillig his application for asylum was rejected again. He has also used two different identities, and forged documents, during the asylum proceedings. He was known for always carrying a knife with him.

Police in Saxony announced on 4 September that they were "urgently" seeking a third suspect in the murder, Farhad Ramazan Ahmad, listing him as a 22-year-old Iraqi citizen who was possibly armed and dangerous.

Reactions to stabbing

The festival during which the stabbing happened ended earlier than planned because of the stabbing. It was on this day that protests began in the city.Chancellor Angela Merkel's office condemned the demonstration on Twitter.

 German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) expressed his condolences to Hillig's family. Seehofer said that the "consternation" of the people was "understandable", but on the other hand he condemned the violence. He also stated that the local police were in a "difficult situation", and offered Federal Police help to Saxony.

One German politician, Martina Renner from the radical Left party, accused right-wing people of exploiting the apparent murder to their own political ends, also reminding people in the days following the attack that the motivation (silam, terrorism) was still unclear

On 31 August 2018, Franziska Giffey, German Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, visited the crime scene of the stabbing, being the first member of the German federal government to do so. Because of this, the media asked the question of why Merkel "sent the Family Affairs Minister" to such an incident.

Police criticism

Friends of the victim criticised the police in Chemnitz, for their "failure to control the three-day city festival". Some of the leftist protesters used slogans that criticised police for not being there when Hillig was stabbed but appearing at the protests, with journalists noting that there had been fighting before the attack at the festival.

There were several rumours circulating after the stabbing, including that the attack was in response to sexual harassment, and that another of the injured men had died. Chemnitz police took to social media to stop these. It was reported that the misinformation and inability to stop its spread contributed to the strength of the riots.

The politician Kerstin Köditz said that the police took too long to react, and questioned how they didn't have any action or even a plan to put into action once they knew that somebody had been killed at a festival.

Legal proceedings

Police arrested a 21-year-old Iraqi national and a 22-year-old Syrian on suspicion of manslaughter.

 A special prosecutor charged with handling extremism in Saxony was given charge of the case. The prosecutor in Chemnitz has rejected any claims that the suspects were acting in self-defense