German courtroom killer gets life

A man has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murdering a pregnant Egyptian woman in a German courtroom.

The Dresden state court also ruled that Alexander Wiens would not be eligible for early release.

Wiens, a 28-year-old Russian-born German citizen, admitted stabbing Marwa Sherbini to death at a court hearing involving them both in July.

The crime sparked outrage across the Muslim world.
During his trial, Wiens said his action was not premeditated, but prosecutors insisted he was motivated by a "hatred of non-Europeans and Muslims".

The case began with an argument in a playground in 2008.

Ms Sherbini, a pharmacist, is said to have asked Wiens to let her child use a playground swing he was sitting on. He refused and instead called her abusive names.

She later took the defendant to court and he was fined 780 euros ($1,170; £718) for defamation.

But when Wiens returned to the courtroom for an appeal hearing on 1 July this year, prosecutors say he smuggled in an 18cm (7in) kitchen knife and stabbed Ms Sherbini at least 16 times with it.

The 31-year-old, who was three months pregnant with her second child, bled to death in front of her husband and their three-year-old son.

Her husband was himself stabbed as he tried to protect his wife, and also accidentally shot in the leg by a security guard who initially believed him to be the attacker.

Many Muslim leaders accused Germany of Islamophobia following the killing.

They said the country, which has the second-biggest Muslim population in Western Europe, had been too slow to condemn it.

Ms Sherbini, who wore a headscarf, was dubbed "the martyr of the hijab".

Thousands attended her funeral in Egypt, some chanting "Death to Germany", and there were also mass protests in Iran.