Bavarian Officer Sentenced for Failing to Probe Knife Attack Before Fatal Stabbings

A Bavarian police officer received a suspended five-month sentence for failing to investigate a 2024 knife attack by a man who later killed two people in Aschaffenburg. The case sparked debate over police accountability and migration policies in Germany.

A Bavarian court has sentenced a police officer to five months in prison, commuted to three years’ probation and a €3,000 donation to a victims’ organization, for failing to investigate a violent knife assault in August 2024. The case drew public attention because the same suspect later carried out a deadly attack, killing a young child and an adult while injuring three others in Aschaffenburg.

The 29-year-old police officer was convicted of obstruction of justice after prosecutors argued that his failure to open an investigation into the Afghan national’s earlier knife attack allowed the suspect to remain free. Five months later, that same man attacked a kindergarten group in a park in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, using a knife.

Judge Torsten Kemmerer of Alzenau district court, near the state border with Hessen, presided over the case. He sentenced the officer to five months in prison but allowed him to serve a three-year probation term instead, alongside a donation of €3,000 (approximately $3,500) to a victims’ organization. The judge said the officer’s inaction amounted to “carelessness” and “laziness,” criticizing him for failing to perform his duty as a law enforcement officer. “He simply did nothing, nothing at all,” Kemmerer said during Tuesday’s hearing.

Prosecutor Christoph Gillot had called for an 18-month prison term, asserting that the officer “knew” the case involved a “dangerous assault with a knife.” He pointed to video evidence, forensic samples, and witness statements that confirmed the severity of the earlier attack. Defense lawyers, however, maintained that it was not proven the officer knew about the extent of the woman’s injuries or the weapon used, and they had sought his acquittal.

The defendant chose not to speak in court about why he failed to file a report or open a criminal investigation. Testimonies revealed a breakdown in communication among the four officers involved in handling the initial complaint, but prosecutors eventually dropped charges against the other three, as they were not the lead investigators.

Prosecutor Gillot acknowledged that it is unclear whether an earlier investigation would have stopped the later killings but emphasized that this was not the issue on trial. The case has stirred widespread public debate in Germany, especially ahead of the February national elections, touching on topics such as police accountability, migration policy, and deportation procedures.

Meanwhile, the Afghan national responsible for the January 2025 knife attack in Aschaffenburg’s Schöntal Park is currently on trial. His defense team does not dispute his involvement in the killings but argues that he is mentally unfit to stand trial, claiming he should be permanently confined to a psychiatric institution. Expert testimony presented during the trial described the 28-year-old man as a paranoid schizophrenic with a prior conviction for assault and a history of temporary psychiatric hospitalizations.

The motive behind his brutal attack on a kindergarten group remains unclear. A verdict in his case is expected on Thursday, October 30.