Berlin police arrest man suspected of being an accomplice to Holocaust Memorial stabbing

BERLIN (AP) — An alleged accomplice of a man who was convicted of stabbing and seriously wounding a Spanish tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial last year was arrested in the German capital on Wednesday.

The Syrian national, identified only as Khalaf A. in line with German privacy rules, is suspected of being an accessory to attempted murder and bodily harm, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

They said that he spent the afternoon before the attack on Feb. 21, 2025, with the man convicted of the stabbing, Wassim Al M., and encouraged him to carry out his plan.

Wassim Al M., also a Syrian citizen, was convicted in March on charges including attempted murder and attempted membership in a foreign terrorist organization. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

The Berlin district court found that he traveled from Leipzig to Berlin to carry out an attack in the name of the Islamic State group.

He chose the Holocaust Memorial because “he believed he would find people of Jewish faith there,” presiding judge Doris Husch said at the time, and he stabbed the Spanish tourist in the throat before shouting “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.”

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a field of 2,700 gray concrete slabs near the Brandenburg Gate in the heart of Berlin, honors the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.

The stabbing took place two days before a German national election in which migration became a central issue, pushed to the forefront by a string of deadly attacks involving immigrants in the months before the vote.