Iraqi man shot dead after knife attack on German policewoman: prosecutors

41-year-old previously sentenced in 2008 to jail term for planning attack on former Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi

BERLIN: German police on Thursday shot dead an Iraqi man who wounded a policewoman with a knife in Berlin, with prosecutors saying he was a suspected extremist.

The 41-year-old man had previously been sentenced in 2008 to a jail term for planning an attack against former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi, a prosecution spokesman told AFP.

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In the incident Thursday, four police cars were called to the western Berlin district of Spandau when the man was reported acting aggressively toward passers-by, police said. When a policewoman approached him, he stabbed her with a knife, leaving her badly wounded before her colleagues opened fire, killing the Iraqi man.

Prosecution service spokesman Martin Steltner identified the man as "Rafik Y.", saying he was sentenced in 2008 to an eight year prison term for his role in a plot against Allawi. National news agency DPA said the man had removed an electronic ankle monitor he had been ordered to wear. In the 2008 court case, Rafik Mohamad Yousef was one of three Iraqi men sentenced to jail terms.

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The three were convicted of belonging to a foreign terrorist organisation -- Iraqi militant group Ansar al-Islam -- and attempted conspiracy to commit murder. The court found that their plot to assassinate Allawi had been hatched only days before his brief trip to Berlin in December 2004.

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Authorities insist they foiled the planned attack but conceded before the start of the trial in June 2006 that they knew too little of the plan to charge the defendants with attempted murder.