The bus on route 71 had almost reached its destination when the attack began. According to witnesses, on July 6, 2020, the attacker stabbed a woman several times with a kitchen knife shortly before reaching Obergünzburg in the Ostallgäu district until he was overpowered by the bus driver. The victim died, several pupils witnessed the crime. Since Tuesday, the victim’s husband has had to answer for the murder of the 27-year-old woman before the Kempten Regional Court. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment. The accused remained silent at the start of the trial. The prosecution accuses him of having planned the crime and of having carried it out insidiously – out of revenge for a supposed humiliation (Ref.: 210 Js 12078/20).
According to the report, the 38-year-old Afghan had previously physically abused his wife and children. In November 2019, he had, among other things, thrown a dish at his daughter’s head after she had, in his view, arrived home too late. When his wife intervened, he had hit her several times – and had already threatened the daughter that he would stab her mother.
When the wife and their children lived separately from the accused and ordered a ban on contact for her husband, he had developed a ” big grudge”, according to the prosecution. He was angry that he could no longer fulfil the role of head of the family. The man feared that he would lose reputation in the Afghan community in Obergünzburg.
These accusations were substantiated by a girlfriend of the victim. She testified in court that the accused had often been jealous of his wife and had “suspected” her of talking to other men. In addition, he had repeatedly abused and threatened her. Among other things, he had told their children that he would “make mincemeat” of her.
As a result, the woman was often afraid, the witness said. She had therefore taken a longer way to the bus to wait at a bus stop where there were more people around. The two women had recognised the accused during the bus ride to Obergünzburg on their way back from the German language class in Kempten, but the attack itself had still surprised her.
According to the prosecution, this was exactly why the accused planned an attack in public: he had assumed that the woman would feel safe on the bus. Several passengers testified in court that the attack came from behind and without warning. “She had no chance,” said a student who had witnessed the attack.
According to several passengers, the attack was only stopped when the bus driver intervened. The 31-year-old overpowered the attacker and threw him out of the bus, he said. His victim, however, was no longer responsive at the time.
According to the autopsy report, the woman died very quickly as a result of several of the eleven stab wounds. Among other things, one of the knife wounds severed the right ventricle, and the lungs, liver and diaphragm were also hit.
The resuscitation initiated at the scene of the crime was “hopeless”, said a forensic doctor. The woman’s heart had probably already stopped beating while the attacker was still stabbing her. However, no injuries caused by the woman’s defence had been found.The woman’s husband was arrested by the police after a short escape and has been in custody since July 2020. According to the Kempten Regional Court, a verdict in the murder trial against him is expected in mid-February.