“I heard a scream, I saw blood dripping (…) I ran out, I heard someone shouting something in Arabic that, although I can’t repeat it, I know what it means: Allah is great.” This is how he described this Wednesday before the Court of Berlin Iker PM, 31-year-old from Bilbao, the traumatic experience lived on February 21, two days before the German general elections. He had arrived in the city the day before. It was a tourist more than just walking with some friends monument to victims of the holocaust. He was somewhat separated from his companions when someone grabbed him from behind and immobilized him with his left arm, while stabbing him with the knife with his right hand. Already on the ground, he received a second stab wound to the cheek. From there, his memories go from a French couple of African origin who covered his wound as best they could, his friends asking for help, loss of consciousness and finally the voice of a Venezuelan surgeon from the La Charité clinic telling him that the knife had entered “three or four millimeters from the jugular”.
For almost two hours, Iker PM gave his explanations to Judge Doris Husch, the prosecutor’s office and the private prosecution. There were no questions from the defense of the defendant, the Syrian refugee from 19 years old identified as Wassim al M., who follows the trial isolated in a security cabin. The attack lasted a few seconds, but the victim suffers to this day post-traumatic stressdaytime nightmares, fear of the dark and dread of any presence behind them.
“Until now, the accused has not offered a confession as the author of the attack,” Sebastian Sevenich, the lawyer representing Iker PM, told EL PERIÓDICO. Through his defense he has expressed his “regret” for the sufferings of the attacked, but questions the testimonies of the police officers who detained him at the scene, with traces of blood, a prayer mat and a Koran. For the prosecution, he had chosen the Holocaust monument because his intention was to kill Jews.
Declaration without cameras
The attack on the monument, consisting of more than 2,000 concrete blocks in memory of the six million Jews murdered by Nazism, occurred at the close of an electoral campaign punctuated by other attacks, committed by refugees awaiting deportation. The polls pointed to a rise in the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came in second position after the conservative bloc of Friedrich Merz.
Wassim al M. is accused of attempted murder with Islamist and anti-Semitic motivation, in addition to having contacted Islamic State (IS). The victim came to testify on the condition that he be protected from the media. Something relatively easy in Germany, where cameras can only record the opening minutes of any trial.
Iker PM worked as a sports nutritionist. Has not been able to recover normality neither in private nor in work. He lives off his savings and in his parents’ house. He does not receive any type of subsidy from the Spanish State, he explained. From the German he has received a payment of 5,000 euros, as an advance payment of possible compensation.
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