Aschaffenburg, Germany — An Afghan man deemed psychologically ill faced a German court on Thursday over a deadly knife attack on a group of toddlers that his defence lawyer labelled the “deed of a madman.”

The stabbings nine months ago in a park in the southern city of Aschaffenburg killed a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man who tried to protect the children, and left three others wounded.

Prosecutors acknowledged that the 28-year-old who set upon the daycare group with a kitchen knife on January 22 was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

The attack, which came just a month before German national elections, inflamed an already heated debate on migration.

The suspect, who was arrested near the scene of the stabbing, has been only partially named as Enamullah O., in line with usu

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