A court investigation began on Friday into a shocking stabbing attack in 2021 on the streets of Würzburg in central Germany carried out by a psychologically ill man.

The Defence lawyers said their client, whose guilt was considered to be beyond doubt, had been urged to carry out the stabbing by voices inside his head.

“He particularly regrets the pain that he caused to the victims and their relatives,’’ lawyer Hans-Jochen Schrepfer said.

The accused, a Somali refugee who came to Germany in 2015, killed three people and injured nine others in the city centre of Würzburg on June 25.

Meanwhile,videos of the man walking through the streets during the attack circulated widely on social media.

Prosecutors had agreed that the accused was not criminally liable in the case due to psychiatric problems, meaning that the court followed a special legal procedure for such cases.

The accused was set to be transferred to a hospital after the proceedings were concluded.

The court was nevertheless trying to find out what motivated the man to carry out the murders.

The three women who died were 24, 49 and 82 years old. The youngest victim was an 11-year-old girl who was badly injured.

The assailant shouted “Allahu akbar’’ (God is greatest) during the attack, a phrase commonly used by Islamist extremists or jihadists as a battle cry.

However, the defence argued that at no point had there been a terrorist motive to the man’s actions.

The prosecution on Monday argued that the accused had been motivated by a hatred of Germany, provoked by what he believed to be his own mistreatment by the country.

“He was driven by revenge despite his paranoid schizophrenia,” said prosecutor Judith Henkel.
ALSO READ:Man, 38, in police net for allegedly stabbing lover’s husband to death
The accused had attracted the attention of the authorities several times due to his psychological problems, but the authorities said that until the day of the crime there had been no indication that the man was a danger to others.