Knife attack in Bielefeld: Landtag demands information about alias names!

Knife attack in Bielefeld: Landtag demands information about alias names!

Bielefeld, Deutschland - The knife attack in front of a bar in Bielefeld, which seriously injured several people on May 18, 2025, will be the topic again in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia next Wednesday. As the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , the SPD parliamentary group applied for a current quarter of the to discuss. This is a 35-year-old Syrian who is led under different names in the official files.

The suspect, Mahmoud M., is known in the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) among at least two names, as Minister Josefine Paul (Greens) emphasized in the state parliament. According to the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior, he appears in two police systems with a total of eight alias names. However, the information is sometimes contradictory, which further heats up the opposition of the opposition to the Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU).

contradictory information

The situation is confused: The SPD criticizes that the official information regarding the alias names of the suspect is inconsistent. While Paul spoke of three alias names in the BAMF documents, Interior Minister Reul claimed that this was not the names led in the BAMF asylum. This leads to claims from the ranks of the opposition after clarity about the actual number of names in the files.

The confusion is reinforced by the difficulties of names from Arabic, which can lead to inaccurate reproductions in Latin script. Nevertheless, the Ministry of the Interior indicates that all personal details of the suspect have been brought together and that it can be clearly identified through fingerprints, as the WDR reported. According to the current state of knowledge, indications of an intention to deceive are not available.

The background of the suspect

Mahmoud M. came to Germany from Syria via Turkey and the Balkan route and in August 2023 submitted an asylum application that is due to the war in his homeland and political persecution by the government. He currently lives in Harsewinkel near Bielefeld. The Federal Prosecutor's Office has taken over the investigation because there is a suspicion of a religiously motivated act.

His stay in Germany should be secured by “subsidiary protection” by February 2027, as is also known. Nevertheless, the question of securing identity in the context of the asylum procedure is becoming increasingly pressing. It should be noted that securing the identity and determination plays a central role in the asylum procedure, as an EMN study emphasizes. The study explains that the identity assessment is not only decisive for asylum applications, but also for the allocation of visas and residence permits, which is relevant for the examination of Mahmoud M.'s case bamf reported.

Although the 35-year-old is considered a "public prosecutor and police blank", the scope of his deed has re-sparked the political debate about the security and integration of refugees in North Rhine-Westphalia.