Palestinian stands trial in Germany for murder of ‘rich Jew’
Palestinian stands trial in Germany for murder of ‘rich Jew’
A witness in the trial of the Palestinian accused of killing Michael Riecher testified that the suspect accused the victim of “annihilat[ing] [his] country.”
In Baden-Württemberg, Germany, a Palestinian identified only as “Iyad B.” in the media stands trial for the brutal murder of Michael Riecher, a German real estate investor whom the suspect reportedly referred to as a “rich Jew” who “annihilated [his] country,” reported the Jerusalem Post.
According to a report in the German newspaper Schwarzwälder Bote, the witness who testified to these comments on Wednesday claimed that the Palestinian suspect’s hatred of Jews was his motive for the murder, which occurred in November. Investigators identified Riecher’s cause of death as strangulation.
Though it is unclear if Riecher was even Jewish, he played a major role in renovating the sanctuary of a synagogue in Germany.
In 2014, Free Democratic Party MP Michael Theurer was quoted as saying, “If Michael Riecher had not taken over the financial risk of the property developer, we would not be sitting in a rock-solid, renovated sanctuary today.”
The murder plot was allegedly hatched by Mohammed Omran Albakr, a 28-year-old from Syria. Schwarzwälder Bote apparently hailed Albakr in 2016 as a model refugee after his 2015 arrival in Germany.
Riecher’s murder comes amid growing anti-Semitism in Germany and Europe at large.
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