The bloody deed has a long history, which is a story of suffering for the 45-year-old woman who testified on Friday in the Darmstadt Regional Court as a witness.

The woman, who she says she has had to endure since she married the 59-year-old Sohil A. in 1994, reports of threats and beatings.

For 27 years, the wife endured being at the mercy of the choleric man, being harassed and oppressed by him, first in her home country of Syria, then in Germany after fleeing in 2016, as she reports without hesitation.

In this country he had become even more aggressive because he no longer had the last word on everything when living in the refugee home.

Jan Schiefenhoevel

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

In Germany, the woman finally separated, but she only succeeded on the second attempt.

However, according to her, the violence did not end with the separation – on the contrary, the anger of the abandoned husband erupted in an attack of uninhibited brutality.

In doing so, he had made true what he had repeatedly threatened to do over the years, namely to disfigure the woman.

In the threats while living together, it was always said: "I will make you ugly."

Sohil A. attacked her with a meat cleaver on a summer's day a year ago and inflicted five injuries on her legs and left arm, according to the indictment.

Accordingly, both legs were broken and one leg was almost severed.

The defendant admitted to the attack at the beginning of the main hearing.

His intention was to take away her beauty, it said in a statement read by defender Hans Georg Kaschel.

However, he didn't want to kill her.

The prosecution evaluates the act differently, namely as attempted murder, as prosecutor Christian Dilg had stated in the indictment.

According to his conviction, the man accepted the death of his wife with approval.

Victim does not have to face the tormentor

The victim spent three months in the hospital and six months in a rehabilitation clinic to learn to walk again.

She still cannot walk or stand for more than a quarter of an hour, as she says when asked by the presiding judge, Daniel Schledt.

She was only able to take steps with a splint on her lower leg, her toes could no longer be moved.

She can't look at a leg that will remain deformed forever in the mirror because she says she can't bear the sight.

At least the witness doesn't have to sit opposite the tormentor while she reports to the judges, the prosecutor and the experts about the crime and the consequences.

When she meets the man who has done so much to her, she still gets so scared that she can hardly be herself, as a certificate confirms.

Therefore, she is allowed to sit in another room with an interpreter.

What she says is transmitted with picture and sound into the courtroom, where the witness can be seen on a screen.

This is how the woman describes how the attack came about.

On that August day she was on her way to a wedding party.

The husband must have heard about it too, presumably from other guests.

In Obertshausen, the woman got off the train and wanted to change to a bus.

But suddenly her husband was right in front of her, as she reports.

From a pocket he took out the meat cleaver that came from the common household.

Before the beating, he said: "You'll see what I'll do with the knife."

A year later, the woman is not only suffering from the physical consequences, which include pain, taking pills against her.

As the witness reports, she feels transported back to the moment of the bloody deed at night and sees the attacker above her.