CAIRO: German police have said that the murder of a 32-year-old Egyptian woman on Wednesday outside a Dresden courtroom was inspired by a deep hatred of foreigners. The man was reported to have acted alone and was not affiliated with any far right organizations. Information pertaining to exactly what occurred in, or outside, the Dresden courtroom continues to flow in, but with each report comes contradictory statements. The Egyptian woman was stabbed to death on Wednesday after she had won a defamation case against the man, Egypt’s Youm El Saba’a newspaper reported late Thursday. According to security sources in the German city, Marwa Al Sherbini, was stabbed inside the court during the trial. The Associated Press ran a brief article on the killing and in the story said police had not released Sherbini or her husband's identity. Local Egyptian news reported that Sherbini was three-months pregnant at the time. Her husband, Elwi Ali Okaz, who was finishing a scholarship at a German institute in genetics, was also shot outside the court, moments after the verdict had been handed down. The AP report says he was “injured” during the scuffle with the German man. Other reports say police shot him accidentally. It is unclear his status, with some reporting he was killed and others saying he is in critical condition. Dresden prosecutor Christian Avenarius said Friday that authorities believe the man was “acting alone” and that the husband was injured in the fray. “It was very clearly a xenophobic attack of a fanatical lone wolf,” Avenarius said. Magdi al-Sayed, the press officer at the German Embassy in Cairo, echoed the prosecutor's sentiments, adding that the incident did not reflect German attitude towards Muslims. “It is a criminal act. It has nothing to do with persecution against Muslims,” Sayed said. The man remains in detention and prosecutors have opened an investigation on suspicion of murder for stabbing the woman. Sherbini had filed a case against her killer, Axel, a 28-year unemployed German of Russian descent – or possibly Russian national of German decent, according to some reports – in August 2008, after he had called her a “terrorist†on a Dresden street because she wears the higab – the Islamic headscarf that covers the hair. He was fined 2,800 Euros for the insulting remarks. The murder comes as Europe is in the midst of a battle over what Muslim women can wear. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said recently that the Niqab – the full covering of the face – is “not welcome in France. The body will be flown back to Egypt for the burial and while the Egyptian foreign condemned the incident, the Egyptian Ambassador to Germany attempted to downplay the incident. In a statement to Youm El Saba’a, Ramzy Ezz El Din denied the murder was part of a an organized hate movement against Arabs and Muslims, calling the murder “a regular incident, as terrorism exists all over the world.†As of Saturday, no foreign major news outlet except the AP had reported on the incident. BM
