Anti-Semitic crimes have increased steadily in Germany in recent years, with the country this month setting a new record for the number of politically motivated crimes last year.
On Thursday, German prosecutors charged a German-Iranian citizen with attempting to arson a synagogue on the orders of the government in Tehran.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that Babak Ji was instructed by an intermediary “acting on behalf of unknown Iranian agencies” during November 2022 to set fire to a synagogue in North Rhine-Westphalia.
After that, the accused sought to persuade one of his acquaintances to set fire to a synagogue in Dortmund using a Molotov cocktail, but he refused to do so. The mediator then chose another synagogue in Bochum, not Dortmund, as the target of the attack, according to the prosecutors.
“The accused refrained from attacking the well-watched synagogue in Bochum for fear of being discovered,” the office said. Instead, the suspect attempted to set fire to a school building adjacent to the synagogue, according to the prosecution.
Anti-Semitic crimes have increased steadily in Germany in recent years and this month the country set a new record for the number of politically motivated crimes last year, although anti-Semitic crimes fell by 13 per cent.
The majority of these crimes, 84 per cent, were attributed to the far right.
