‘Suspected Islamist’, 41, had previously been imprisoned after plot to attack former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

German police have shot dead an Iraqi man who wounded a police officer with a knife in Berlin, with prosecutors saying he was a “suspected Islamist”.



The 41-year-old man had previously been sent to prison for planning an attack in 2004 against the then Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, a prosecution spokesman told AFP.

In the incident on Thursday, four police cars were called to the western Berlin district of Spandau when the man was reported acting aggressively toward passers-by, police said.

When a policewoman approached him, he stabbed her with a knife, leaving her badly wounded before her colleagues opened fire, killing him.

Prosecution service spokesman Martin Steltner identified the man as “Rafik Y”, saying he was sentenced in 2008 to eight years’ prison for his role in a plot against Allawi.

The national news agency DPA said the man had removed an electronic ankle monitor he had been ordered to wear.

In the 2008 court case, Rafik Mohamad Yousef was one of three Iraqi men given a prison sentence.

The three were convicted of belonging to a foreign terrorist organisation – the Iraqi militant group Ansar al-Islam – and attempted conspiracy to commit murder.

The court found that their plot to assassinate Allawi had been hatched only days before his brief trip to Berlin in December 2004.

Authorities insist they foiled the planned attack but conceded before the start of the trial in June 2006 that they knew too little of the plan to charge the defendants with attempted murder.