BERLIN, June 6 (Xinhua) -- A 41-year-old Afghan man, who stabbed and killed a 5-year-old boy at a refugee center in Munich on Saturday, had previously been charged with arson and was imprisoned in 2008 after his deportation was denied, German newspaper Abendzeitung reported on Tuesday.
At the time of the attack on the 5-year-old boy, the perpetrator was electronically tagged and under supervision.
On Saturday, the man fatally injured the young boy by putting a knife to his throat and went after the mother of the child at a refugee center. The police subsequently shot him at the scene of the crime.
The federal government of Upper Palatinate, Bavaria, reported that the city of Munich had previously tried to deport the attacker after he set fire to an apartment he and his wife occupied in 2008. The man reportedly started the fire to avenge his cousin and restore his family name.
The city of Munich failed to deport the man because he successfully proved that he would become a target in his native Afghanistan due to his recent conversion to Christianity. The man instead carried out a six-year prison term and was released in 2015.
The police reported on Monday that the perpetrator was involved in an argument which had erupted in the refugee center, but the reasons for the attack are still not clear.
The Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told radio station Bayerischer Rundfunk that this tragic event should mean a "new way of dealing with such cases." He also added that the German people should not have to "live with the danger of crossing such criminals."
