(AFP) An Afghan man with suspected jihadist motives goes on trial in Germany on Thursday over a knife attack that killed a policeman and wounded five others at an anti-Islam rally last year.
The hearings will start less than two weeks before German elections and at a time of heated debate about immigration and public security following a spate of deadly attacks blamed on asylum seekers.
The defendant, only partially named as Sulaiman A., allegedly used a large hunting knife in a stabbing rampage targeting a rally by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, in the western city of Mannheim.
The knifeman initially attacked a speaker and other demonstrators, then stabbed a police officer who rushed in to help, and who died later the same day of his wounds.
