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Germany’s top prosecutor submitted a new arrest warrant on Wednesday based on terrorism allegations for a Syrian man who stabbed and critically injured four men outside a restaurant in the western city of Bielefeld last month.
The federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the accused, who has only been identified as Mahmoud M. in line with German privacy rules, “is urgently suspected of membership of a foreign terrorist organisation, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm.”
The defendant allegedly attacked several people with a knife outside a restaurant in downtown Bielefeld on 18 May.
Four men were seriously injured in the early morning attack.
Prosecutors allege that the suspect follows an Islamist-jihadist ideology.
He allegedly joined the so-called Islamic State group in Syria in December 2014 in the city of Raqqa, they said.
After entering Germany, prosecutors said the accused decided to kill as many randomly selected people in Germany as possible.
He did so “in the name of a global ‘holy war’ and on behalf of Islamic State,” they added.
“To this end, in the early morning of May 18, 2025, he stabbed guests with knives in front of a restaurant in Bielefeld, critically injuring four people,” the prosecutors said.
The newly submitted arrest warrant replaces one issued by a Bielefeld court on 20 May, which had been obtained by the local public prosecutor’s office.
Mahmoud M. was arrested on 19 May and has been in custody since then.
On 20 May, the federal prosecutor’s office took over the investigation.
Among other things, the federal prosecutor’s office will take over terrorism-related cases from local prosecutors in Germany.
