(MENAFN- Gulf Times) An 18-year-old male was charged yesterday with an assault that resulted in the death of a 23-year-old student, a crime that triggered outrage in Germany.
The man, identified only as Sanel M because of German privacy laws, has been charged by prosecutors two and a half months after the attack in Offenbach near Frankfurt.
Sanel M is accused of knocking to the ground Tugce Albayrak in a McDonald's parking lot November 15, in retaliation for Albayrak's intervening in the defendant's and his friends' allegedly harassment of two schoolgirls at the restaurant.
Albayrak, who was studying to become a schoolteacher, hit her head and lapsed into a coma.
The attack that was captured in a surveillance video that was later broadcast on national media.
Two weeks later, her family decided to switch off her life support on her 23rd birthday.
The proceedings against Sanel M will take place before the juvenile division of a criminal court in Darmstadt, the prosecutor's office said.
Sanel M is in custody, where he himself became the victim of an assault at a juvenile detention facility in Wiesbaden and suffered a broken nose, a spokesman for investigators said.
About 1,000 mourners attended Albayrak's funeral and a mass online petition has called for her to be posthumously awarded the Federal Order of Merit for her bravery.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has expressed support for awarding the honour to a woman called a "role model" by President Joachim Gauck for showing "bravery and civil courage in an exemplary way".
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