An Afghan asylum seeker has been charged with murder after allegedly stabbing his female boss to death, following German authorities’ decision that his home country was too unsafe.
Sayed Akbar S. is alleged to have stabbed Magda M. 26 times with an eight-centimetre blade in what German media described as a ‘frenzy’ on May 7 2025 at a ‘New Yorker’ clothing store in Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Polish-born Magda, 41, tragically died at the scene, and Sayed, 26, was found a short distance away with blood-stained hands.
At his trial, it was revealed that his asylum application to stay in Germany had been rejected.
But instead of being sent back to Afghanistan, German authorities ruled it would be too dangerous to send him back and granted him a deportation ban.
He was also revealed to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, with a prosecutor telling the court: ‘He acted in a state of diminished responsibility’.
But this was little comfort to Magda’s family, who were present at the trial and told Bild: ‘What are we supposed to think when we see this man?
‘The moment he ended Magda’s life, our suffering began. A suffering that will never end and has traumatized many people forever’, her mother said.
Sayed Akbar S. is alleged to have stabbed Magda M. 27 times with an eight-centimetre blade on May 7 2025 at a ‘New Yorker’ clothing store in Krefeld (File image of Krefeld)
It comes weeks after an Afghan man deemed psychologically ill faced a German court over a deadly knife attack on a group of toddlers that his defence lawyer labelled the ‘deed of a madman’.
The stabbings nine months ago in a park in the southern city of Aschaffenburg killed a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man who tried to protect the children, and left three others wounded.
Prosecutors acknowledged that the 28-year-old who set upon the daycare group with a kitchen knife on January 22 was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
The attack, which came just a month before German national elections, inflamed an already heated debate on migration.
The suspect, who was arrested near the scene of the stabbing, has been only partially named as Enamullah O., in line with usual practice by the German judiciary.
Facing the court in handcuffs and foot shackles, he appeared groggy and subdued, wearing an open white shirt with a dark jacket.
