Metal barriers, body scanners, bullet-proof glass, 200 police officers and rooftop marksmen have transformed Dresden’s district courthouse into a high security bubble this week.
The setup is in stark contrast to a day in July when Alexander Wiens allegedly smuggled a kitchen knife into the same courthouse and stabbed a pregnant Egyptian pharmacist to death.
The extraordinary security measures are now there to protect the life of Wiens, who has had a fatwa issued against him by an Egyptian sheikh. The case began in summer last year when Wiens, an unemployed man of Russian origin, met Marwa el-Sherbini, 31, in a playground where he refused to give up a swing to her toddler son, Mustafa, hurling anti-Islamic abuse at her.
The police were called and pressed charges against Wiens. He was found guilty of racial abuse and fined. The court heard this week how, during his appeal against the verdict on July 1, Wiens plunged his knife 16 times into the heart and then the back and arms of Sherbini. He then stabbed her husband, scientist Elvi Ali Okaz, who was trying to help his wife.
“He was like a man possessed,” said Tom Maciejewski, the judge who presided over the civil case in July and who was called back this week as a witness in the murder trial.
He compared the “thud” of the knife as it penetrated the woman with a volley of machine-gun fire. Maciejewski scurried under his bench and repeatedly pressed the emergency button until armed guards arrived.
Rather than Wiens, however, the guards shot Ali Okaz, apparently mistaking him for the aggressor.
Accompanied by members of his family, Ali Okaz arrived in court this week on crutches, having spent three months in hospital being treated for ripped tendons in his leg. He also wore a badge bearing a picture of his late wife.
Now it is the German judicial system that is being made to feel it is in the dock as much as Wiens, as Arab observers look to see that he is given the highest sentence.
“The Arab world is expecting nothing less than the severest possible punishment,” said Aktham Suliman, bureau chief of the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera in Germany. “We’ve been at pains to explain to viewers that there is no death penalty in Germany.”
Maria Bohme, a top aide to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said the government was well aware that the trial was being closely followed.
“This makes it all the more important to trust and respect the independence of German justice,” she said.
The case has caused fury in the Arab world, with protests in Cairo, Alexandria and later in Iran and Karachi, where Sherbini was dubbed the “Hijab martyr” and Germans were labeled murderers. It has heightened the international tension surrounding the trial, which is due to end on Nov. 11.
There have been fears of reactions as explosive as those to the 2005 Danish cartoons row. An Egyptian sheikh issued a fatwa calling on Muslims in Germany to take revenge, and a Dresden orchestra has been forced to cancel concerts in Egypt. The German foreign ministry, aware of the highly sensitive nature of the case, has worked closely with the Egyptian embassy, helping about 20 Egyptian journalists to cover the trial.
As if to emphasize the importance the case is being given in Egypt, in courtroom 84 this week was the Egyptian ambassador, the consul, the president of the Egyptian chamber of lawyers, a team of Egyptian lawyers and the chairman of the Central Council of Muslims, which represents 4.8 million people in Germany. Even Iran has sent observers.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS