2017 Hamburg attack

The 2017 Hamburg attack was a stabbing attack that took place on 28 July 2017 in Hamburg, Germany.

Attack
At 3pm on 28 July 2017, a man went to an Edeka supermarket in Fuhlsbüttler Straße in the Barmbek area of Hamburg. He took a 20 cm-long kitchen knife from the supermarket shelf and used it to attack several people, killing a 50-year-old German man. Deutsche Welle reported 6 injured in addition to the killing. According to eyewitnesses the man shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the attack. Prosecutors said that he had hoped to die as a martyr.

Suspect
Der Spiegel reported the suspect, who was arrested at the scene, as a refugee named Ahmad A., who allegedly had contacts with the Salafist sect, as well as having psychological and drug problems. He is a 26-year-old Palestinian born in the United Arab Emirates, arrived in Germany in 2015. Hamburg's Interior Minister Andy Grote stated that the suspect "was known as an Islamist but not a jihadist".

Citing security sources, Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel reported that the perpetrator was a failed asylum seeker who was known to German police; he had been added to the list of 800 suspected Islamists in Hamburg prior to the attack. The news agency DPA reported that security authorities were investigating evidence the man had Salafist ties. He was awaiting deportation, but had not been deported because he did not have "identification and travel documents". While German prosecutors claim that the attacker had a "radical Islamist" motive, investigators have not found any links to jihadist groups. In March 2018, he was sentenced to life in prison. The psychiatrist who had examined Alhaw stated that he had told him that "he was initially drawn to the West because of its open lifestyle". Alhaw also had watched IS propaganda videos online which radicalized him over a period of time.