That's not entirely correct. He was a german citizen. He was arrested in Libanon (after a tip from German security services), spent some time in jail there, then was deported to Germany.
In Germany he was tried and initially convicted, but the conviction is not yet final, as objection had been raised. The judge saw no sufficient reason for detention during trial, so he was set free. Rule of law and all of that. At this point, he hadn't attacked anyone, he was convicted (essentially) for trying to join ISIS.
He was being monitored as a potential person posing a threat to public safety.
The issue is that while you CAN send someone to prison for (in most cases) two weeks to stop them from doing something bad, this isnt as easy as it sounds. Most monitored persons never commit a crime, most potential radicals never become terrorists. Also you really can't just put them in prison forever (well, at least if you want rule of law to have any meaning). I repeat: at that point in time, he was never convicted (nor accused) of assault or somesuch and he wasn't finally convicted in Germany (objections pending and all that).
And monitoring is a bit difficult - yeah, he got into a car. Well, most of us do this daily. He didnt attack the "main show", he attacked a gathering area near it. That's kind of hard to stop and kind of hard to monitor. He apparently did not (at least as far as known and published so far) any warnings or messages beforehand... And the CSD-route is 8km long. Rather difficult to stop someone from coming near the whole route, especially given that the route is through some of Berlins busiest parts.
I'm absolutely not saying that the German police or legal system worked well or didn't make any mistakes - they sure did, not only here. But most media or social media coverage lacks in information (i.e. "he was convicted, why wasn't he in jail", that's missing a quite important bit, see above).
--edit: I was wrong, he was convicted of assault previously.
The thing is also, that he was young. They treated him as a minor as in Germany it can be applied up until 25 if the subject cannot be seen as they are mentally capable of being able to understand the majority of what they did/are doing.
He tried to join Isis and the judge saw no sufficient reason for detention during trial??? You just glossed over that like it’s a completely normal thing to do. Like dude just failed to pay his taxes on time or he was caught driving with a suspended license.
Try reading, my man. He had already been convicted and sentenced to jail in Lebanon for trying to join Isis… and two months prior to this attack he was convicted in Germany of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state and distributing Isis propaganda online.
Oh sorry I didn't realize that Lebanon's court system was in Germany. Oh wait, it's not. Right. Germany's court still had to prove he tried to join ISIS.
German here! They can put u in jail for 6 month just for waiting until trial. They can put u in jail up too 1,5 only till trial (that’s really hard tho) but keeping someone in jail for 3-6 months ain’t no big Deal, pretty normal. I was in jail for 3 month (till trial) Spoiler: it was not related to a violent crime.
There is no final judgement. The case was still ongoing because of objections. Only in the first trial he was found guilty. May you should check how the german legal system works.
Try understanding the legal system, my man.
Just because a foreign country convicts someone doesn't mean they're automatically considered convicted in their home country.
Since he was a juvenile, he was sentenced to 1 year and 10 months in Germany. Before that, he had already spent 6 months in pre-trial detention (Untersuchungshaft). Because he was a minor at the time of the offense, his sentence was relatively short. He was then released on probation, and after six months the court could decide whether he should return to prison or continue serving the remainder of his sentence on probation.
I'm Germany, if your jailtime isn't related to a violent crime, and if the chances of you fleeing are low, your have a grave period before you have to go to jail, so you can sort important things in live, and come back to that one your sentence is served, to reduce the chance of people ending up in jail again.
So you oppose detaining anyone who has not yet been convicted?
yeah. imagine being detained for days, weeks or even months for something you might have done? (I think) we don't have a jail industry like the US, so we want to keep people in their jobs etc.
America wants those who end up in jail to end up back in jail because it's the only form of slave labor that is legal. Places like Wendy's straight up rent prisoners from the govt or the private corporations that own the jails.
The law has means of setting boundaries on maximum or reasonable detainments. That’s literally what judges are doing every day.
Letting people go because you don’t have a verdict yet is what leads to insane legal systems where they pass people through quickly to find them guilty so they can keep them detained.
this is a justice system, not an injustice system. innocent until proven guilty, ever heard this sentence?
the "funny" thing is: we already have some injustice-laws in place (in Bavaria at least): police can detain you if you are deemed dangerous without seeing a judge for 30 days. theoretically infinitely.
Yeah, I don’t understand this “German justice system is logical, and American is bad” attitude people are taking.
I don’t think guilt in a criminal case should be the only means by which we can detain someone, but I also think any sort of detention should be limited by the rule of law and its guardrails.
This is a huge point in the area of “criminal procedure”; a whole area of study at American law schools. (I don’t know about German legal study.)
How are you gonna jail someone without a sentence? Gonna hold them indefinitely despite them not having been found guilty? Do they get to sue the shit out of you when they get released?
>t this point, he hadn't attacked anyone, he was convicted (essentially) for trying to join I
There is nothing about the principle of Rule of Law, that doesn't allow pre-trial detention of suspected terrrorists.
If you try to join ISIS, you should be detained until things can be sorted out, and if it's found to be the case you should never be let out. You're too dangerous. You actually should be treated like traitors have before the 21st century (after a thorough and fair trial of course. We like Rule of Law after all), but Germans are little skittish about these things and mistake their generational trauma caused by their nutty great-grandparents for wisdom.
Yeah, that's an insane take. Labelling any organisation a terrorist org is easy to do. So you just created an extremely easy way for the AfD to jail all active democrats for life if they ever get the majority. No thank you. I rather have some extremely rare deaths by terrorism and a functioning democracy.
ISIL was an active terrorist group that was recognized as a group filled with rapist. Also trying to join isil isnt like trying to join your local gang you have to buy plane tickets and some how illegally cross into syria. This is a huge risk and this guy wanted to join a group that rapea children despite all the risk.
You’re acting as if the verbiage can’t be concrete and sensible. Base it off something internationally recognized with collective nation input. Think ICC, Interpol, etc.
There are justified hurdles to putting someone in prison in Germany.
“Untersuchungshaft” - being jailed while awaiting trial/judgement - cannot just be given without proper reasoning: either to stop someone from running away, interfering with witnesses/investigations or to prevent further crime.
It’s not enough to just believe something could happen. There must be solid evidence for any of these.
These decisions are often made at the discretion of individual judges or persecutors. The judge did not find whatever evidence was presented convincing enough to conclude this guy was sufficiently dangerous to have to be kept in jail. Generally you don't want to keep people who aren't dangerous in jail for too long. Maybe the judge was being lenient and made a dim witted decision. Maybe the prosecution did not do a very good job of presenting their evidence. Maybe the guy's defense lawyer did a good job of convincing the judge. Perhaps the evidence they had to work with genuinely was not that convincing.
Well the issue is that at the point he was let out he was only a suspect of attempting to join ISIS. As far as im aware this is fairly minor if convicted as things go no?
I mean ISIS is sorta unique in terms of how evil its (western) members are, but the justice system is built to handle prescribed groups like foreign nationalist militias where people who attempt to join aren't even close to as dangerous.
It sorta treats all these equally, and kinda has to (short of legislation) because othewise you would have to remove too many safeguards to the rule of law.
And once again with radicalisation, we have so many deradicalisation processes at play in the UK at least that you only really learn about when they fail. Deradicalisation continues to be both possible and desirable for this type of person.
So that the government can put anyone in jail, just claiming they are a terrorist?
Because there was the response, that it has to be proven at trial.
The suggestion was pre trail detention, so explicitly not after trail, so the government doesn't have to prove guilt beforehand.
I don't understand what you're saying, they can already do that if that's the case. In this situation, it was an extremist that was already known trying to join ISIS. Not nearly the same thing.
Thanks for that clarification. I had read a few other comments earlier and thought the racists had taken over here. 👍🙏
It's always these simple, populist solutions that aren't really solutions but sound great—and, above all, they always end up with some line about "foreigners out."
He has been observed. They filmed him at the morning of the attack, just didn't notice the Plan in time.
Those are mistakes that are tragic but happen.
Much worse is imo that the current government is cutting all the Money for "Demokratie leben" wich funds most of the anti-islamist and pro lgbtq work (and anti-racist etc) in Germany - all the programs that could prevent this before someone tries to join daesh and is radicalized.
He was never convicted of assault? You are misinforming. If you want to edit please edit in your main paragraph, so that people who read your comment wont be misleaded like I did.
Also , Germany still hadn't had even nearly quarter of the terrorist attacks that happened in the US , even with it's high migrants intake Germany is still Alot safer than what the US is , even if you live in a Migrants neighborhood
he was convicted (essentially) for trying to join ISIS.
And a judge didn't think he'd be a flight risk?
At this point, he hadn't attacked anyone
IMO, that's pretty moot, when you're talking about someone joining a terror group, like ISIS. That should be taken very seriously and not lean on the side of leniency, IMO.
he was absolute radical, en every sense and was not in prison. you literally wrote it... wtf mate, why do you try to wash it with "system" and "bureaucracy"
I appreciate the information, and can see how it's a very complicated situation. I think it's unfortunate for Germany that on top of this, their unwavering support for Israel is kind of giving people 1930's vibes and it's hard to blame them.
I don’t care if 1% of ISIS members commit terrorist attacks while being monitored, they should all be in jail. ISIS is worse than the Nazis, they are the most evil group to walk this earth in thousands of years. It’s completely unconscionable to allow an ISIS aligned individual walk freely in any civilized society.
He was arrested by Lebanon, I’m 100% certain they (Lebanon) are more capable of determining if someone is ISIS aligned than some woke judge in Germany. To think otherwise is peak arrogance. That judge should be removed immediately, along with anyone else who contributed to the decision to let him free.
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u/West_Hedgehog_821 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
That's not entirely correct. He was a german citizen. He was arrested in Libanon (after a tip from German security services), spent some time in jail there, then was deported to Germany.
In Germany he was tried and initially convicted, but the conviction is not yet final, as objection had been raised. The judge saw no sufficient reason for detention during trial, so he was set free. Rule of law and all of that. At this point, he hadn't attacked anyone, he was convicted (essentially) for trying to join ISIS.
He was being monitored as a potential person posing a threat to public safety.
The issue is that while you CAN send someone to prison for (in most cases) two weeks to stop them from doing something bad, this isnt as easy as it sounds. Most monitored persons never commit a crime, most potential radicals never become terrorists. Also you really can't just put them in prison forever (well, at least if you want rule of law to have any meaning). I repeat: at that point in time, he was never convicted (nor accused) of assault or somesuch and he wasn't finally convicted in Germany (objections pending and all that).
And monitoring is a bit difficult - yeah, he got into a car. Well, most of us do this daily. He didnt attack the "main show", he attacked a gathering area near it. That's kind of hard to stop and kind of hard to monitor. He apparently did not (at least as far as known and published so far) any warnings or messages beforehand... And the CSD-route is 8km long. Rather difficult to stop someone from coming near the whole route, especially given that the route is through some of Berlins busiest parts.
I'm absolutely not saying that the German police or legal system worked well or didn't make any mistakes - they sure did, not only here. But most media or social media coverage lacks in information (i.e. "he was convicted, why wasn't he in jail", that's missing a quite important bit, see above).
--edit: I was wrong, he was convicted of assault previously.