Asylum-Seeker Goes on Trial in Germany over Knife Attack

Police investigators work at the crime scene after a knife attack in a supermarket in Hamburg, Germany, July 28, 2017. (Reuters)
Police investigators work at the crime scene after a knife attack in a supermarket in Hamburg, Germany, July 28, 2017. (Reuters)
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Asylum-Seeker Goes on Trial in Germany over Knife Attack

Police investigators work at the crime scene after a knife attack in a supermarket in Hamburg, Germany, July 28, 2017. (Reuters)
Police investigators work at the crime scene after a knife attack in a supermarket in Hamburg, Germany, July 28, 2017. (Reuters)

The trial of a Palestinian asylum-seeker, charged with killing a man with a knife in a supermarket, got underway in the German city of Hamburg on Friday.

Ahmad Alhaw, 26, risks life in prison. Hearings began after he was deemed psychologically fit for trial.

Investigators found no link between him and ISIS terror group. So he has gone on trial on murder and not terror-related charges.

Alhaw took a 20-centimeter knife from the shelves of a supermarket last July, using it to kill one and wound six in the assault. He was arrested after passers-by overpowered him.

The trial is expected to last until March 2, with the six wounded invited to the hearings only from January 26.

Germany has been on high alert over the threat of a militant assault since Tunisian Anis Amri drove a truck into crowds at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016, killing 12 and injuring 48.

Like Amri, Alhaw was to have been deported after his asylum application was rejected by authorities at the end of 2016, but the process was held up by a lack of identity documents.

The attacks have piled pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel over her decision to allow in more than a million asylum seekers since 2015.



Israel Launches Communications Satellite from Florida

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP
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Israel Launches Communications Satellite from Florida

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP

Israel on Sunday said it had launched a new national communications satellite on board a SpaceX rocket from the United States.

The Dror 1 satellite was blasted into orbit on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and the foreign ministry said.

"This $200 million 'smartphone in space' will power Israel's strategic and civilian communications for 15 years," the ministry wrote on X.

Accompanying video footage showed the reusable, two-stage rocket lift off into the night sky. SpaceX said the launch happened at 1:04 am in Florida (0504 GMT Sunday).

IAI, which called the launch "a historic leap for Israeli space technology", said when it announced the project to develop and build Dror 1 that it was "the most advanced communication satellite ever built in Israel".

In September 2016, an unmanned Falcon 9 rocket exploded during a test in Florida, destroying Israel's Amos-6 communications satellite, which was estimated to have cost between $200 and 300 million.