A German mayoral candidate has been stabbed in the neck one day before she was due to compete in an election.
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Frederik Schorn told news agency dpa that candidate Henriette Reker was wounded during a campaign event on Saturday. She suffered serious injuries but her condition was stable, police chief Wolfgang Albers said. Four other people were wounded and a 44-year-old suspect was taken into custody, Cologne police said on their website. There was no immediate word on his possible motive.
The suspected attacker, a man apparently aged between 30 and 40, was arrested.
Police said the attacker stabbed Reker and her aide at around 9.00 a.m. (0700 GMT) at an information stand for the Christian Democrats (CDU), Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party. Ms Reker has been the head of Cologne’s social affairs and integration department since 2010.
The outgoing mayor Juergen Roters said he was “deeply shocked” by the incident. Center-left Social Democrat Jochen Ott, Reker’s main rival in the election, suspended his campaign.
Germany is expected to take in up to a million asylum seekers this year as conflicts in the Middle East continue to rage and the European Union struggles to agree on a cohesive strategy to control the influx.
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Justice Minister Heiko Maas condemned the attack as “an unimaginable and abominable act” while regional president Annelore Kraft said it was an “assault on democracy”.
