An off-duty police officer and two other passengers overpowered a suspected terrorist who slashed five people with a knife on a German train.
The 31-year-old Iraqi born attacker had been investigated for possible Islamic extremism while living in a refugee hostel in 2017, a top official said.
But investigators are still keeping an open mind on the motive behind the man’s rampage.
Four of the injured were treated in hospital for wounds to their hands or face and head, while one victim had been stabbed in the shoulder blade, but none were in a life-threatening condiiton.
The attacker was also injured and was taken to a local clinic. The train had just pulled out of the station at Herzogenrath, near the border with the Netherlands, when the attack took place.
Passengers were heading for the western German city of Aachen at 7:42am local time when the man began knifing fellow passengers ‘randomly and arbitrarily,’ said state interior minister Herbert Reul.
He praised the courage of the 60-year-old off-duty officer and passengers who had ‘prevented worse harm’.
He described the attack as ‘a gruesome crime that was stopped in an enormous act of courage’.
Authorities were investigating the possibility of an extremist motive but hadn’t confirmed it, Reul said.
About 200 officers were deployed to secure evidence at the scene and look after the victims.
Reul said the man had undergone a police check for possible Islamic extremism after the refugee hostel where the man had been living reported that he had changed his behaviour and isolated himself from his fellow residents.
He had had no further contact with police. The man’s current citizenship could not immediately be determined.
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