Murder without regret: Shirbini killer gets life term (News Feature)

By Simona Block and Nico Esch Nov 11, 2009, 17:40 GMT

Dresden, Germany - With a bowed head, hood pulled low over his face, no-one could tell the reaction of Alex Wiens as judge Birgit Wiegand read the sentence - life imprisonment - in the Dresden courtroom, just metres from where he murdered Marwa el-Shirbini four months earlier.

During the two-hour statement by the judge, Wiens scarcely moved, and said nothing.

But until now, according to numerous character witnesses brought before the court, the Russian-born man was otherwise highly aggressive, when something wasn't to his liking.

When Shirbini encountered him in a playground, where the unemployed 28-year-old was sitting on a children's swing, she asked him to move. He swore at her, saw her headscarf, called her an 'Islamist.'

When she took him to court, he lost. When she testified against him upon his appeal, he took a kitchen knife with him. He leapt across the room, on July 1, and stabbed the 31-year old pregnant mother 16 times in front of her family.

Stubborn, perverse, petulant, eccentric, introverted: These are the attributes given to the killer by his acquaintances.

What was more than clear was his perverted patriotism. He was proud of his German roots, proud of his German passport. The dark side of this assumed identity was his particular hate for Muslims and immigrants, perhaps an expression of his known support for the far- right NPD party.

In Wiens' world view, despite being an immigrant himself, Muslims had no right at all to live in Germany.

He grew up in the city of Perm, in Russia's Ural mountains. He received education in Kazakhstan. During the trial he described his childhood as 'shit.'

In Germany where he moved in his 20s, he dreamt of a better life. He devoted himself to learning fluent German, and attempted to bury his Russian past and childhood. He took the name of his German mother, and changed 'Aleksander' to 'Alex.'

'He had a picture of himself as the perfect German. But that was a utopian idea,' said the judge.

His reputed closedness and awkward manner pushed him always to the margins. He was always seen by his peers as a Russian, not as a German. The disappointment, presumably, fired his hatred for other outsiders.

And until July 1, this had only - only - been expressed in verbal attacks. But anyway it had cost him his few friends.

The fact that - following the incident in the playground - German justice had taken the side of the Muslim woman, and not him, enraged Wiens.

He was snide and petulant in his earlier appearances at the court, when el-Sherbini stood pleasant and calm opposite him.

With intent he pushed the 18-centimeter knife into her, one thrust went into her heart. As her three-year-old son looked on, she bled to death. In the melee, her husband had been shot by a police officer attempting to stop the attacker after himself being stabbed 15 times.

Wiens expressed not a word of regret for his crime, nor an apology for the family that he destroyed.

However, even those sentenced to life imprisonment have the eventual chance of rehabilitation. After 15 years, he can apply for parole - but there is a slim chance he'll get it then.

Even so, he'd still be young, Tarek el-Shirbini, the victim's brother, complained following the verdict.

'It's up to him to learn his lesson,' judge Wiegand said as Wiens was led off to jail, a day before his 29th birthday.

The widower of Marwa el-Shirbini left the courtroom without a word.