Syrian refugee, 19, praised after pinning down assailant in Hamburg knife assault

A 19-year-old Syrian refugee in Germany has been hailed as a hero after he pinned down an assailant at Hamburg’s major railway station, serving to to halt an assault through which 18 other folks have been injured.

Police on Friday stated a 39-year-old German lady were arrested on the scene of the assault and that she was once believed to be in a state of mental misery. The 18 other folks injured have been later reported to all be in strong situation, whilst the girl was once positioned in psychiatric care.

As town reeled from the incident, the highlight landed on Muhammad Al Muhammad, who were heading to his house in Buchholz, 25km from Hamburg, after visiting a pal within the town. He was once ready at the platform for his educate when he noticed a lady wielding a knife.

He watched as other folks started operating clear of the girl. “I decided to run in the other direction and stop the woman,” he advised the German information mag Der Spiegel.

As he made his method, he noticed some other guy, whom he described as Chechen, kick the girl within the knee, inflicting her to fall to the bottom. “I held her [down] and pressed her hands against her rucksack so she couldn’t get up,” he stated. “The woman didn’t scream, she didn’t resist.”

Police arrived a couple of moments later. As they pointed their guns in opposition to them, Muhammad moved clear of the girl slowly, his arms raised within the air.

Der Spiegel, which stated it had verified Muhammad’s identification, famous that the movements of the 2 males had almost definitely avoided extra other folks from being injured.

News in their interventions quickly started to make waves throughout Germany, with some contrasting it to the sustained efforts by way of the far-right, anti-immigrant birthday party Alternative für Deutschland, to hyperlink migration to crime, whilst a contemporary learn about by way of the Munich-based Ifo Institute discovered there was once “no correlation” between migration and better crime charges.

Many in German media have apparently additionally echoed this affiliation; a 2023 research discovered that each print and tv media reported 5 instances extra on violent crimes when the suspect was once a foreigner in Germany, the broadcaster Deutsche Welle famous lately.

Against this backdrop, it was once the most important to percentage the tale of Muhammad, who’s at the start from close to Aleppo and arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2022, the journalist and political commentator Gilda Sahebi wrote in Germany’s Die Tageszeitung newspaper.

“One is tempted to say: ‘See? An Arab – his name is Muhammad, no less – is a hero!’” Sahebi wrote. “The political and public debate is now so dripping with racist toxicity, spread by a far-right party and its influencers in media and social media, but also by democratic political and media actors, that it is necessary to tell the story of Muhammad Al Muhammad.”

Muhammad stated that, following the assault, he were puzzled by way of police earlier than ultimately making his method house. “The police thanked me and bought me a cappuccino,” he stated. “That made me very happy.”