A 19-year-old Syrian went on trial in Berlin on Thursday over a knife attack on a Spanish tourist at the German capital's Holocaust memorial days before February's general election.

The suspect, partially named as Wassim Al M., is accused of being a supporter of the Islamic State group who intended to "target a person of the Jewish faith", according to the court.

He allegedly approached the 30-year-old victim from behind among the concrete steles of the memorial and "inflicted a 14-centimetre-long (more than five-inch) cut to his throat with a knife", the court said in a statement before the trial.

The victim, who was visiting the memorial with two friends, was badly injured but managed to stagger out of the steles before collapsing in front of the........

© Al Monitor