A court in Dresden, Germany held the second session in the murder trial of Marwa el-Sherbini yesterday amid less security than at the start of the trial. El-Sherbeni, an Egyptian mother and pharmacist living in Dresden, was stabbed and killed in a courtroom last July. A 29-year-old Russian-born German citizen stands accused of el-Sherbini's murder. The accused was in the court to appeal a harassment suit filed against him by el-Sherbini, when he reportedly stabbed the Egyptian woman 18 times while yelling anti-Muslim statements. El-Sherbini was pregnant at the time of her murder. Hamdi Khalifa, the chairman of the Egyptian Bar Association, is serving as the plaintiff's council. Khalifa said that in yesterday's session the court heard from the judge who witnessed the murder and a forensics doctor, who said el-Sherbini was been stabbed 18 times in various parts of her body. El-Sherbini's husband also gave testimony. Speaking by telephone from Dresden, Khalifa told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the judge wept as he recalled el-Sherbini's murder. Khalifa also said the judge quoted the defendant as "Germany should not receive these people after the events of 11 September and there have to be neo-Nazis to deal with them." The judge said he saw the accused taking something from out of his suit, according to Khalifa. The judge said that when he asked the defendant what it was, he was told it was a pack of cigarettes, Khalifa reported the judge as saying, though it was actually a knife that the accused had smuggled into the courtroom.
Khalifa praised the trial proceedings, which he said provided ample time for each witness to speak uninterrupted. Olwi Akaz, el-Sherbini's husband, spoke during the first day of the trial on Monday, recalling the initial conflict between his late wife and the defendant, which began with a verbal argument in which the defendant reportedly harassed el-Sherbini with racial slurs. "I do not think I will continue to live in Dresden," Akaz said.
