Germany checking if fatal Hamburg stabbing was ISIS-related

By Kirsten Grieshaber, Associated Press

Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016 | 6:22 a.m.

BERLIN — Germany's federal prosecutor is checking whether he should take over the investigation into a fatal stabbing in Hamburg earlier this month, his office said Sunday.

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office told German news agency dpa that the prosecutor is looking into the case following a statement by the ISIS-run Aamaq news agency on Saturday saying "a soldier of the Islamic State" stabbed two people in Hamburg on Oct. 16.

Two teenagers, a 16-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl, were sitting on the waterside of a Hamburg lake that day, when a man approached them from behind, stabbed the boy several times with a knife and then pushed the girl into the water. The attacker fled afterward. The boy was taken to a hospital where he subsequently died. The girl who was pushed into the water wasn't injured, but was taken to a hospital for psychiatric treatment after the attack.

Different from the ISIS claim, only one person was stabbed.

Hamburg police are still looking for the attacker, whom they have described as a male from 25 to 30 years old.

The Aamaq news agency said, "the attack was carried out in response to target citizens of the coalition countries that fight the IS." It did not identify or give a name for an attacker.

Hamburg police spokesman Timo Zill said it was too early to speculate about the possible attacker and his motive.

In July, two attacks carried out in Germany by asylum seekers were claimed by IS. Five people were wounded in an ax rampage on a train near Wuerzburg and 15 in a bombing outside a bar in Ansbach. Both of the attackers were killed.

Earlier this month, a 16-year-old German-Moroccan girl went on trial for allegedly stabbing and wounding a police officer in Hannover at the behest of the Islamic State group.