A 24-year-old Syrian man was sentenced on Thursday to nine and a half years in prison for the stabbing of a German in Chemnitz, a homicide that sparked anti-foreign violence and protests a year ago. series of the far right.
The Dresden court found Alaa Sheikhi guilty of the murder of the 35-year-old German Daniel Hillig on 26 August 2018 after a dispute that could never be established. The prosecution had required 10 years in prison, the defense pleading acquittal, for lack of evidence.
Upcoming elections in Saxony
This ruling comes just days before the first anniversary of the beginning of these serious clashes following the homicide, and various protests in the city of Chemnitz at the initiative of the far right, whose images had been around the world.
It also comes to ten days of elections in the region of Chemnitz, Saxony, and the neighboring Brandenburg, two Länder of the former GDR became bastions of the extreme right party Alternative for Germany (AfD ). This movement, which has been sitting for two years in the Bundestag, could achieve the best performances of its young history, carried by its anti-migrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric as well as by the fed-up of a part of the population that feels abandoned by the elites.