Marwa El-Sherbini was murdered in the Dresden District Court on 1 July 2009.
She had come to the Dresden District Court as a witness in appeal proceedings relating to the crime of insult. The defendant in the case had racially insulted and threatened her and her child at a playground in Dresden a year prior. She then filed a criminal complaint against him. In the courtroom, he pulled out a combat knife and stabbed the 31-year-old woman and her husband sixteen times. Marwa El-Sherbini died in the courtroom just minutes later in front of her three-year-old son and her husband.
In the trial against her murderer, the public prosecutor named anti-Muslim racism as a central motive in the crime for the first time. In memory of Marwa El-Sherbini, 1 July has been observed as the Day Against Anti-Muslim Racism in Germany since 2015.
Marwa El-Sherbini
Marwa El-Sherbini was born on 7 October 1977 in Alexandria. She began playing handball during her college years and was eventually selected for the Egyptian women’s national handball team. After leaving school, she studied pharmacy and then worked as a pharmacist. Following their marriage in 2003, she moved with her husband, a young pharmacist and budding genetics researcher, first to Bremen and then to Dresden for his doctoral studies. Their son was born there and Marwa El-Sherbini worked on her licence to practise as a pharmacist in Germany.
Attack on the playground
One summer evening in 2008, Marwa El-Sherbini visited the playground in her neighbourhood with her two-year-old son. The two swings there were occupied by a young man and a girl. After a while, Marwa El-Sherbini asked the man to make space for her child on one of the swings.
The man immediately became loud and aggressive. He demanded that Marwa El-Sherbini and her son leave the public playground. He called an Islamist, saying she had no place in Germany. He insulted her and claimed that her son would also become a terrorist one day. He also threatened the child with violence.
Several parents at the playground at the time offered Marwa El-Sherbini their help. One father called the police. After being questioned, Marwa El-Sherbini signed the criminal complaint.
Penalty order, objection, main hearing, appeal
The self-confessed NPD voter wrote a letter of objection against the fine imposed by the penalty order for insulting behaviour, in which he expressed his hatred of Muslims.
As a result of this appeal, the Dresden District Court scheduled a hearing. During this trial, the perpetrator and Marwa El-Sherbini met for the second time. She was the only witness to testify. Her husband accompanied her. In the course of the proceedings, the defendant ranted at length about his racist and anti-Muslim beliefs. In the end, the court again sentenced him to a fine.
One day later, the convicted man lodged an appeal in person at the district court office. The public prosecutor’s office also lodged an appeal on the grounds of his lack of remorse and his racist convictions, with the aim of imposing a prison sentence.
Appeal hearing and murder
The appeal hearing before the 12th Small Criminal Chamber of the Dresden Regional Court took place on 1 July 2009. The defendant carried a combat knife into the court building unnoticed in his rucksack. He positioned himself on the defence bench so that the courtroom door on the left behind his back was in his immediate vicinity.
The accused repeated his racist ideas in court and explained that he had voted for the NPD.
Marwa El-Sherbini was the only witness summoned for 09:50. Her husband accompanied her again. Their son, now three years old, was ill that day, which is why they had to take him with them to the district court. Consulting the agenda outside the hearing room, they tried to find out whether they had been summoned for the same time as the defendant and would have to face him again as they had in the district court.
Marwa El-Sherbini was called into the courtroom at around 10:05 am. She made the same statements as before the district court. The defendant then asked the same question as in the first instance: what she was doing in Germany, why she was here. He insisted on an answer several times. At around 10:20 a.m., Marwa El-Sherbini was released as a witness and walked to the door in the narrow space between the defence bench and the wall. Her husband followed her with the child by the hand.
Shortly before Marwa El-Sherbini reached the door, the defendant jumped up, pushed her against the closed courtroom door, and stabbed her upper body with full force. The husband let go of the child’s hand and pushed himself in front of his wife to shield her. The perpetrator then stabbed Marwa El-Sherbini and her husband. The bystanders’ attempts to stop him by shouting at him, throwing chairs, and moving tables were unsuccessful.
As the husband wrestled with the perpetrator for the knife, an armed police officer appeared in the doorway. A shot was fired and pierced the husband’s thigh.
The emergency services arrived at 10:30 a.m. and tried in vain to resuscitate Marwa El-Sherbini. She was pronounced dead at 11:07 a.m., still inside the courtroom.
Her husband survived with serious injuries. He was resuscitated several times, placed in an induced coma, and operated on several times. His stab wounds were similar in number and severity to those of his wife.
