Dutch-Syrian man arrested for randomly stabbing girl, 4, in German supermarket
Police in Germany arrested a 34-year-old man accused of stabbing a young girl in a supermarket in Wangen im Allgäu. Authorities said on Thursday, "the suspect is a Dutch citizen originally from Syria."
The seemingly random incident happened at about 3 p.m. on Wednesday in a grocery store on Zeppelinstrasse. "Previous findings showed that the man suddenly approached the 4-year-old girl and wounded her with a knife," prosecutors and police said in a joint statement.
One witness managed to disarm the man, and chased the suspect as he called police. Responding officers apprehended the man without incident.
"The girl underwent immediate surgery and is now in a stable condition," authorities said. "There was no prior relationship between the suspect and the child, who was traveling with her mother, according to the investigators' initial findings."
The Dutch-Syrian man was due for an arraignment hearing on Thursday afternoon. An investigation into the motive of the crime, and what led to it, was still ongoing at the time.
Wangen im Allgäu is a small city of 27,000 people near Lake Constance and the Austrian border. The case is being led by investigators based in Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg.
