Is Alex W. Schizophrenic?: Last-Minute Twist Could Delay Verdict in Dresden Murder Trial

• Print
• E-Mail
• Feedback

The first encounter between W. and his victim occurred on Aug. 21, 2008, when Marwa al-Sherbini walked onto a playground on Hopfgartenstrasse in Dresden with her son. Al-Sherbini was an attractive woman wearing jeans and a blouse; her headscarf was the only thing that identified her as a Muslim. The boy wanted to play on the swing, but both swings were occupied, one by W. Al-Sherbini, speaking in German, asked him if he would make room for her son on the swing.

W. immediately began swearing at al-Sherbini, calling her an "Islamist" and a "terrorist" who had no business being in Germany. He also said that her son would grow up to become a "terrorist."

"The defendant refused to accept that he, as a German, should make room for a non-German," a witness who tried to calm W. down later told the court. "He said that 'those people,' the Muslims, should not be allowed to have children, because they would only end up blowing up Germans."

The string of insults continued. Al-Sherbini told W. that it was a public playground and asked the bystanders if anyone had a mobile phone she could use.

A woman handed her a phone, and the man who would later testify in the murder trial called the police. W. began shouting at the woman whose phone was being used, asking her, in Russian, why she had done it. "I'll give my mobile phone to whoever I want," the woman replied in Russian.

"They're killing our soldiers," W. shouted, "and you're kissing their ass!"

'I Feel Humiliated'

Al-Sherbini filed a complaint against W. for verbal abuse. In October 2008, the Dresden District Court ordered W. to pay a fine of €330 ($488). He formally objected to the order and wrote to the court, his German marked by misspellings and grammatical mistakes: "I simply am not understanding since when is forbidden to tell truth in this so-called 'constitutional state.' Everyone knows that Islam is dangerous and crazy religion, and that members of Islamic religion describe others as 'non-Islamists' and misguided people who must be either converted or destroyed. In light of all this it is easy to understand why I see them as enemies … To tell you truth, I also want to say that the insanity of the Islamists is not just because of religion but mostly because of their race itself … I feel humiliated and unfairly treated by the German justice system."

Perm, the Russian city where W. was born and spent part of his childhood, is about as far away from Germany as Egypt is. Al-Sherbini and her husband moved to the northern German city of Bremen in 2004 and later to Dresden. Elwy Ali Okaz obtained his doctorate at the prestigious Max Planck Institute in Dresden, and she completed an internship at the university hospital and in a pharmacy so that she could eventually work as a pharmacist. Al-Sherbini spoke German very well; certainly far better than W. who, despite having gone through several state-funded integration programs, never really found his feet in Germany.

Verbal Abuse

Because of Alex W.'s objection to the court order, a hearing was held in the Dresden District Court on Nov. 13, 2008. Once again, W. was stubborn and unbending. "It was immediately clear that he was not going to pay the fine, nor that he would apologize," the municipal court judge later testified. "He wanted to decide for himself what he wanted to say. Laws have limits, he said, and he claimed that was merely defending his Lebensraum (living space)."

"But you must have told him," the presiding judge interjected, "that his tirades are considered verbal abuse under German criminal law. If he feels that everything German is so wonderful, he must have accepted that."

"No," the municipal court judge responded. "He denied that these people have the right to feel insulted." Muslims, W. apparently said, are not people, and a German should not have to make space for them on a swing.

After that, W. was ordered to pay a fine of €780, a decision he immediately appealed. Tom Maciejewski, the presiding judge of the regional court, and two lay judges heard the case on July 1. Al-Sherbini, who had been summoned as a witness, came to the hearing with her husband and their young son.

'She Is Dying!'

At that hearing, the defendant calmly told the court that, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, such "monsters" no longer had the right to live in Germany. He said that he classified people according to race, and that he believed that European races should be permitted to stay in Germany, while others should not. "As Herr W. was launching into a discussion of Holocaust denial, I interrupted him and told him that such denials are punishable by law," Maciejewski said.

The judge choked up repeatedly when recounting the events that unfolded in his courtroom at the end of that hearing, when W. suddenly rushed toward the woman and began frenetically stabbing her. His eyes filled with tears as he described how the badly injured husband clung to his wife and said: "She is dying! She is dying!"

"I had actually decided to dispense with the hearing of the witness, because the defendant had already acknowledged the facts of the case, and because I did not feel that the district court's sentence was excessive," says Maciejewski. "I wanted to dismiss her, because the matter was clear."

But one of the lay judges had a few more questions. If, instead, he had agreed with the judge's suggestion, al-Sherbini would still be alive today.

There were many witnesses to the crime, and each of them saw different things from his or her perspective. When these details are put together, like pieces in a puzzle, a clear picture emerges. The husband threw himself in front of his wife to protect her, struggling with the killer to get the knife from him. In addition to sustaining serious stab wounds, he was shot in the leg by a police officer who erroneously took him for the attacker. By the time W.'s defense attorney shouted: "No, that's the wrong person!" it was too late.

No Security Check

During the murder trial, recordings of the emergency calls received by the police on that July 1 were played to the court. How the dead woman's family members sitting in that courtroom must have felt when they heard the desk officer's ponderous responses: Uh huh, what was that? A stabbing at the regional court? Okay, where? Loth - rin - ger Strasse. Would you spell that please? Okay. On the ground floor? Which courtroom? What's the phone number? And your name? Okay, I'll send a car.

Al-Sherbini's attacker had stabbed her with so much force that she was beyond help. W.'s defense attorney argued that his client had not planned to use the knife in his backpack to attack the witness or her husband, but that it was just a knife he carried with him wherever he went. But why did W. feel he needed to carry a 30-centimeter (12-inch) knife with an 18-centimeter blade around with him?

The building that houses the Dresden Regional Court today was magnificently restored after German reunification in 1990. But it was considered too expensive to add a security checkpoint at the entrance -- and so none was built.

• Back
• 1
• | 2

• Part 1: Last-Minute Twist Could Delay Verdict in Dresden Murder Trial
• Part 2: Hatred of All Muslims