How did El-Sherbini die?
Murder of Marwa El-Sherbini
stabbed by Alex Wiens
Marwa Ali El-Sherbini (Egyptian Arabic: مروة على الشربينى‎),[note 1] was an Egyptian woman and German resident who was killed in 2009 during an appeal hearing at a court of law in Dresden, Germany. She was stabbed by Alex Wiens,[note 2] an ethnic German immigrant from Russia against whom she had testified in a criminal case for verbal abuse.[1] El-Sherbini's husband, who was present at the hearing, tried to intervene. He too was repeatedly stabbed by Wiens and was then mistakenly shot and wounded by a police officer who was called to the court room.[1] Wiens was arrested at the crime scene and subsequently tried for murder and attempted murder. He was found guilty of both charges; it was also found that Wiens's actions constituted a heinous crime, because they were committed in front of a child, against two people, in a court of law, and fulfilled the murder criterion of treacherousness, such as hatred against foreigners.[2] Wiens was sentenced to life imprisonment.[2]