33-year-old sentenced to six years in prison

The Hamburg Regional Court sentenced a 33-year-old to six years in prison on Monday for a near-fatal knife attack on a neighbor. The judges found the man guilty of grievous bodily harm, a court spokesman said. At the same time, the court ordered the accused to be placed in a psychiatric hospital.

The court is convinced that the accused Afghan attacked a then 48-year-old Turk in Altona-Nord with a knife on January 29, 2022 and seriously injured him. The neighbor was about to take out garbage and go to his car when he was approached by the defendant - allegedly because he wanted to settle a long-standing neighborhood dispute.

But the men quickly clashed again verbally. The dispute was about unspecified allegations by the daughter of the man later attacked against the father of the Afghan defendant.

The dispute then escalated. The 33-year-old wanted to punish the neighbors in order to restore his "family honor", according to the indictment of the man's motive. Both families were originally friends. The friendship had turned into a dispute, said a court spokesman.

On the day of the crime, the 33-year-old pulled a knife with a 20-centimetre-long blade out of his jacket and stabbed the older man's head with it, the indictment said. He tried to fend off the bites with his hands. He fell to the ground and reportedly suffered a twelve centimeter cut from the corner of his mouth to his ear and another six centimeter cut on his head. A phalanx and a facial nerve were severed. The accused struck so hard that the blade broke off the knife handle, the prosecutor said.

Doctors saved the 48-year-old with an emergency operation. The alleged perpetrator initially fled, but the police were able to arrest him a little later in front of the family home.

The prosecutor had asked for nine years and ten months in prison for attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm. She had also applied for placement in a psychiatric ward. The defense attorney had spoken out in favor of a conviction for dangerous bodily harm, but had not filed a specific criminal complaint. The verdict is not yet legally binding.