BERLIN: A Syrian man arrested after a violent attack on a German high-speed train last week has been admitted to a psychiatric ward, police said on Wednesday.
The 20-year-old is accused of attacking passengers with an axe and a hammer on the train from Hamburg to Vienna on Thursday, leaving four people seriously injured.
The suspect was suffering from “a complex psychopathological disorder of the schizophrenic type at the time of the crime, which could have significantly reduced his criminal responsibility”, police said in a statement.
Investigations to determine the circumstances and motive of the crime had not yet produced any “reliable findings”, they added.
A 38-year-old German man, a 51-year-old Syrian woman and her sons aged 15 and 24 were injured in the attack, including by targeted blows to the head.
Investigators last week said the 24-year-old had managed to grab the hammer and strike back at the suspect, who was also seriously injured.
The suspect had “drugs in his system”, they said, although the substances were yet to be definitively determined.
Investigators also said a witness had reported that the suspect prayed and said “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest in Arabic) around the time of the attack.
However, there was no evidence of an Islamist motive or links to extremist organisations, they added.
The suspect arrived in Austria as a minor and had been accorded refugee protection in 2022, according to the Austrian interior ministry.
However, earlier this year he was convicted of bodily harm and obstruction of justice and a procedure was under way to strip him of his asylum status. – AFP
