Some news stories make a country shudder and trigger painful associations. This was one of them.
A week ago, on regional train RE 4131 traveling from Landstuhl to the town of Homburg in southwestern Germany, ticket inspector Serkan T. confronted a young passenger who was traveling without a ticket.
Following standard procedure, he asked for the passenger’s ID and requested that he get off at the next stop. At that point, the passenger suddenly stood up, shoved him violently and began punching him in the head.
The attack was so brutal that Serkan T. collapsed unconscious. A uniformed passenger on the train provided first aid and attempted resuscitation. The inspector was then transported to hospital, where he died a few hours later from a brain hemorrhage despite doctors’ efforts to save him.
The crime stunned German public opinion. But what followed added another troubling dimension.
According to a statement by the Zweibrücken public prosecutor’s office in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the alleged perpetrator was not a refugee from Syria or Afghanistan—an assumption that would have reinforced the narrative of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which campaigns against immigration and what it calls “culturally...
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