Another day, another culture-enricher with an axe and a grudge.

This incident took place on Tuesday in Schwabing, a district in northern Munich. Many thanks to MissPiggy for translating the article from the Süddeutsche Zeitung:

Attack in Schwabing — Man Hits Driver in the Face with an Axe

The pedestrian is said to have seriously injured his victim’s head in the process. His wife witnessed the crime from the car.

March 10 2020
by Martin Bernstein

With axe-like object, a pedestrian is said to have hit a car driver on the head in Schwabing late Sunday afternoon. The victim has been in hospital ever since. The homicide squad of the Munich police only made the incident public two days later in order not to endanger the work of the investigators. At noon on Tuesday, police forces arrested the suspect in the city, a 34-year-old man.

The incident took place on Sunday around 5 pm on Gernotstrasse. A 33-year-old man from Munich was driving with his wife towards the Mittlerer Ring. He had to stop at an intersection at Burgunderstraße because a pedestrian jumped in front of his car and began to suddenly hit the hood with his hands. The 33-year-old got out of the car to clarify the situation. A physical confrontation ensued. According to the police, at that moment the pedestrian pulled out “a kind of hatchet” and hit the left side of the 33-year-old’s head. The man from Munich suffered an injury that left him bleeding heavily. He was operated on in hospital, but his injuries were not life-threatening, according to the hospital. His wife, who had remained in the car during the crime, was not injured. The offender fled.

The homicide department and the Munich I public prosecutor’s office took over the investigation. On Monday, a suspect for the crime, a 34-year-old Iraqi living in Munich, was confirmed. During the forensic investigation conducted at the scene of the crime, a fingerprint of the 34-year-old had been found on the hood of the car. On Monday evening a warrant against the suspect for attempted murder was issued and the Munich police have been on his trail. On Tuesday around 12:05 pm the suspect was arrested by police headquarters’ task forces in the city. Whether he will be taken into custody or sent to a psychiatric hospital is still unclear.

As a rule, the SZ does not report on ethnic, religious or national affiliations of suspected offenders. We only deviate from this rule of agreed press codex in cases of justified public interest. We decide this on a case-by-case basis.

Miss Piggy has translated more details about the attack from another article, which is behind a pay wall:

Passerby cuts half of the victim’s face off

The pedestrian reacted completely irrationally, hitting the hood with both fists. The 33-year-old got out of the car to confront the pedestrian. The argument escalated. Witnesses report that the pedestrian, a 34-year-old from Iraq, suddenly pulled an axe and immediately struck.

The axe hit the victim on the left side of his face. The blade cut almost half of the Munich man’s face off. The axe missed the carotid artery and the artery in the collarbone area by a hair’s breadth. The wife of the professional driver had to watch helplessly from the passenger seat as her husband was attacked and collapsed covered in blood. Witnesses called the ambulance and police.