Five days after a police officer was stabbed to death in the market square of Mannheim, Germany, a local candidate has reportedly been attacked.
The man, described as a local election candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, had his attacks cut, German media outlet DPA reported.
His group said the incident happened Tuesday night near the market square.
The local AfD association said the candidate was confronted by a man who tore down an election poster and then cut him with a knife. He was taken to hospital for treatment, he added.
AfD politician and Bundestag member Malte Kaufmann confirmed the identity of the victim., Out The subject of the attack was Heinrich Koch, who was running in the city council elections scheduled to be held on June 9. However, officials did not confirm this.
Mannheim police only commented on the police operation, adding that more details about the attack would be provided later on Wednesday. However, the DPA said the suspect had been arrested.
The latest incident in Mannheim comes after an Afghan asylum seeker was detained on suspicion of wounding five anti-radical Islamists and fatally wounding a 29-year-old police officer as they prepared for a rally on Friday.
The killing sparked outrage in Germany, and the government said it may allow deportation to Afghanistan.
The 25-year-old suspect in this attack is said to have come to Germany as a refugee in 2013 and has since had two children. Deportations to Afghanistan stopped when the Taliban returned to power three years ago.
The violence occurred as Germans prepared to vote in the European Parliament elections, which will be held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU).
The AfD is challenging Chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left Social Democrats for second place in the vote. Even though the far-right party's top candidates have been hit by a series of scandals.
“We are shocked and appalled,” Markus Frohnmaier, a senior AfD official in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, told German media about the incident.
