As the victim's injuries are described in the courtroom, the defendant hides his face in his hands, head bowed.

The doctor who treated the injured woman in rehabilitation speaks of severed nerves and smashed bones that could only be reassembled with screws and plates, of the fact that a lower leg remained deformed and the woman, who was born in 1977, can no longer lift her foot and can lower.

Jan Schiefenhoevel

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Finally, the accused Sohil A. waves his hand to the interpreter because he no longer wants to hear the doctor's words translated.

The presiding judge, Daniel Schledt, rebuked the 59-year-old Syrian that he had to put up with it and asked the interpreter to continue translating.

The doctor then reports that during the six months that the patient spent in the rehabilitation clinic, she learned to walk again, albeit with major limitations.

She can only take steps with a splint on her lower leg.

With a walking stick, she managed distances of 200 or 300 meters in the park.

Attack with meat cleaver

What the accused is accused of in the hearing before the district court in Darmstadt is a bloody crime of unimaginable brutality.

On an August day last year, he is said to have watched his wife, who had separated from him a few months earlier, at the train station in Obertshausen in the Offenbach district.

He attacked her in the middle of the crowded platform and hit her with a meat cleaver if everything happened as prosecutor Christian Dilg stated in his indictment at the beginning of the day of the trial on Monday.

Accordingly, a blow hit the woman's left arm, several blows went to the legs, which were almost severed.

In this way, Sohil A. wanted to disfigure the woman who no longer wanted to be with him.

She should no longer be attractive to other men, the prosecutor says.

The courageous intervention of a married couple on the platform prevented the loss of legs, says the prosecutor.

The nurse and doctor administered first aid and tied off the injured's legs to stop the bleeding, according to witnesses.

According to the prosecutor, the accused accepted her death in the attack, in which the woman lost a lot of blood, according to the witnesses.

Therefore he has to answer for attempted murder.

Accused wanted to "take away the beauty" from his wife

In a statement read out by defense attorney Hans Georg Kaschel, the defendant admits the attack, regrets the act, and asserts that he wants to undo it.

His intention was to "take away her beauty".

However, he did not want the woman's death under any circumstances.

He is therefore defending himself against the charge of attempted murder.

The accused did not want to answer questions from the judges.

A decision by the Frankfurt district court, which is read out in the courtroom, shows that the crime has a history.

A few months before the crime, it was determined that Sohil A. was not allowed to get closer than 50 meters to his wife, who was separated from him.

The reason was an earlier attack.

The description of a witness who met the couple in a refugee camp in 2015 and became friends with them throws a spotlight on the victim's marriage to the alleged perpetrator.

There was an argument, the wife said she wasn't allowed to leave the house.

The man was jealous, his wife was afraid of him.

The wife made two attempts to separate, after the first separation she went back to the man.

One of the couple's two sons confirms that the parents did not get along.

There were already tensions in the marriage in the home country, not only in Germany.