After the attack on Berlin’s Economics Senator Franziska Giffey, the suspected perpetrator was identified and provisionally arrested. This was announced by the police and public prosecutor Berlin with. The 74-year-old man is already known to the police for incidents in the area of state security and hate crime. The State Security Criminal Police Office, which is responsible for political crimes, is investigating.
The accused was brought before an investigating judge later that day. According to the police, there were indications that he was mentally ill. The man was temporarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital. “The decision to temporarily place the accused in a psychiatric hospital was issued and implemented as requested,” wrote the Berlin Attorney General’s Office on X. The man’s apartment was also searched.
Giffey had previously been attacked at an appointment in Berlin and was slightly injured. According to police reports, a man attacked her from behind in a library in the Rudow district with a bag that contained hard contents. The SPD politician was hit in the head and neck, and the suspect then left.
Giffey with bodyguards at an appointment
Giffey “briefly went to a hospital for outpatient treatment of the headache and neck pain,” the police said. The next day, the politician said she was well again. “After the first shock, I can say I’m fine,” Giffey wrote on Instagram. She can also continue her work again.
The SPD politician has already taken part in another meeting in Berlin. She was accompanied by three bodyguards from the State Criminal Police Office. No security guards were present at the press event in the library. As a rule, only federal politicians are entitled to this protection.
There was no justification for the attacks, Giffey added. They represent a transgression of boundaries that society must resolutely oppose. She is concerned and shocked about an “increasing ‘fair game culture'” to which people who are politically active are exposed.
The crime scene is in Giffey’s constituency. In Neukölln she was district mayor and then became Federal Minister for Family Affairs. After her doctorate was revoked, she resigned in 2021 and returned to state politics, where she was governing mayor until 2023.
After the attack on Berlin’s Economics Senator Franziska Giffey, the suspected perpetrator was identified and provisionally arrested. This was announced by the police and public prosecutor Berlin with. The 74-year-old man is already known to the police for incidents in the area of state security and hate crime. The State Security Criminal Police Office, which is responsible for political crimes, is investigating.
The accused was brought before an investigating judge later that day. According to the police, there were indications that he was mentally ill. The man was temporarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital. “The decision to temporarily place the accused in a psychiatric hospital was issued and implemented as requested,” wrote the Berlin Attorney General’s Office on X. The man’s apartment was also searched.