Pregnant Muslim Woman Murdered in Courtroom

The trial is set to begin later this month for a man accused of fatally stabbing a pregnant woman during a court hearing in Dresden, Germany. The attacker, publicly identified only as Alex W., was on trial for allegedly shouting ethnic slurs at Marwa Ali El-Sherbini at a playground in Dresden in August 2008. He was charged and found guilty of defamation, but the verdict was appealed, leading to a second hearing this past July.

At the appeal hearing, Marwa Ali El-Sherbini testified for the prosecution about Alex W.’s verbal attack. Shockingly, when she had finished her testimony, the defendant attacked her with a knife he had concealed in a backpack. El-Sherbini received over a dozen stab wounds and ultimately died from her injuries; her husband, Elwi Ali-Okaz, was also stabbed as he attempted to intervene.

Before the attack, El-Sherbini was happily married and working as a pharmacist in Dresden, having moved to the city in 2008 with her husband and 2-year-old son. At the time of the attack she was three months pregnant with her second child.

Prosecutors say that the attack was motivated by ethnic hatred; in August Alex. W was formally charged with murder, with the intial court date set for October 26. The attack was apparently made possible due to the fact that the parties in the courtroom were not searched before entering, nor were there any security officers present; this is common in cases in which there are no apparent threats, and no one present who is currently under arrest for any crime. El-Sherbini’s murder sparked outrage around the world and prompted angry demonstrations in her home country of Egypt.