BERLIN, Germany – A Kurdish man who allegedly attacked a female police officer in Berlin was shot dead by German police.
The man, identified as Rafiq Muhammad Yousef and originally from Akre in the Kurdistan region, died on the scene Thursday when police opened fire, reportedly as he attacked the 44-year old female officer.
Police said Yousef had been released from prison in 2013 after serving a five-year sentence for the attempted assassination of then Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi in Berlin in 2004.
Police said Yousef was already wanted in Kurdistan for charges related to “religious radicalism,” but that German laws prohibited the deportation on grounds he could face the death penalty.
According to information obtained by Rudaw the man left Kurdistan in 1996 and applied for asylum in Germany the same year.
The policewoman suffered serious stab wounds but is in stable condition, according to police.
“There are indications that this was not a planned act, but a religious motif can’t be excluded,” Frank Henkel, the interior minister for the state of Berlin, told reporters.
Yousef is believed to have been affiliated to the radical Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam. Its founder, Mulla Krekar, is facing multiple terror-related charges both in Kurdistan and in Norway, where he has lived since 1991.
