A German mayoral candidate has been stabbed in the neck in an open air market, police said. The arrested suspect told police he was acting out of ethnic intolerance.
He disagreed with the candidate’s liberal policies on handling immigration and with those of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to German media reports.
But the election for senior mayor of the city of Cologne, in the country’s west, will go forward as planned on Sunday, a day after the stabbing. And victim Henriette Reker, who is expected to make a full recovery, was still up for election as an independent candidate.
Four other people sustained injuries in the attack, and a 44-year-old male suspect was arrested at the market, police told journalists on Saturday.
Police say they believe he acted alone. He was carrying two knives, one of them a combat knife.
Reker’s campaign team has given updates on her condition on her official Facebook page and posted its outrage.
“We are sad and appalled over the targeted attack on Henriette Reker, our colleagues and other campaign workers,” the team said. “We are shocked by the misdeed’s presumed xenophobic motive.”
The city of Cologne has a reputation in Germany for a prevalent attitude of diversity and acceptance, and Reker’s campaign platform openly appealed to this.
Her web page on her integration policy is titled, “Cologne is many-colored.” On it, she vows to promote equal opportunity and equal appreciation for of the city’s citizens regardless of ethnic, religious or gender background.
Though Reker is running as an independent, which is rare in German politics, she is enjoys broad support from Germany’s conservative, centrist and leftist ecological parties.