A 24-year-old man from Berlin has been sentenced to three years in prison for an attack on a Jewish student.
The Tiergarten District Court found the defendant; formerly a fellow student at the Free University of Berlin, guilty of grievous bodily harm and found anti-Semitism was the motive for the attack.
Prosecutor Tim Kaufmann, who had demanded a sentence of two years and four months for the defendant, said the attack on the student Lahav Shapira was an example of anti-Semitic violence.
“|Lahav Shapira was attacked because he is Jewish and campaigned against anti-Semitism,” Kaufmann added.
Shapira, now 32 years old, was attacked outside a bar in the central Mitte district on February 2, 2024.
The defendant admitted following Shapira as he left the venue and attacked him, arguing that the act was not about politics but due to Shapira’s behaviour in a WhatsApp group and his tearing down of a poster at the university.
The 24-year-old, whose parents are from Lebanon, apologised to Shapira shortly before the verdict was handed down.
“I am sorry to have caused you pain,” he said. According to the verdict, the defendant knocked down Shapira with his fist and kicked him in the face, leaving the Jewish student with a complex facial fracture and a brain haemorrhage.
Shapira appeared as a witness earlier in the trial, explaining how he was forced to lock himself at home for several weeks after suffering severe injuries.
