BERLIN - German investigators have dropped a probe into a policeman who shot an Egyptian trying to stop his pregnant wife being stabbed to death in a courtroom in July, a spokesman for prosecutors said Wednesday.
Prosecutors also said there were no grounds to launch proceedings against the judge in the courtroom for not sounding the alarm sooner, or against the court's chief judge for insufficient security.
The policeman, who has not been named, shot Elwy Okaz in the leg because he mistakenly believed in what was a "highly dramatic" and "unclear situation" that Okaz, and not another man, was the attacker, prosecutors said.
In fact, Okaz was trying to protect his wife Marwa El-Sherbini, 31, later dubbed the "veil martyr", from a frenzied knife attack by Russian-born Alex Wiens, who was jailed for life on November 11.
The situation "was particularly hard to assess since both ... were covered in blood and Elwy Okaz had just managed to grab the handle of the knife with his hand, making it appear as though he was the one attacking," prosecutors said.
"The actual attacker Wiens meanwhile was holding the blade of the knife, which added to the impression that he was the one being attacked," prosecutors said.
The killing, as well as the slow reaction of Germany's politicians and media, sparked outrage in Sherbini's home country, as well as in the wider Muslim world.
Wiens and Sherbini were in court because Wiens was appealing against an earlier fine for calling the headscarved Sherbini a "terrorist", an "Islamist" and a "whore" in a playground in the eastern city in August 2008.
Okaz had filed in October a criminal complaint against the judge in the trial, Tom Maciejewsk, and the chief judge, Gerd Halfar, alleging manslaughter, causing injury through negligence and failure to assist a person in danger.
But prosecutors said that Halfar was justified in not ordering additional security since Wiens had been "calm and disciplined" in his previous hearing. There were also no indications that he might turn violent in court.
Maciejewsk was also cleared of not having reacted more quickly, with prosecutors saying that, having at first thought that Wiens was only using fist, hit the alarm button as soon as he saw the knife.
He also confronted Wiens and only left to get help when Wiens tried to attack him as well, prosecutors said.
"He could not have been expected to do more," they said.
Wiens is accused of stabbing Sherbini repeatedly with an 18-centimeter (seven-inch) kitchen knife in a courtroom in Dresden.
She bled to death at the scene watched by her son Mustafa, then three and a half, and her husband in what prosecutors say was a killing motivated by "a pronounced hatred of non-Europeans and Muslims".
Egyptian media quickly dubbed her "the veil martyr". The attack, as well as a slow reaction by Germany's media and political class, triggered anti-German feeling in Egypt and in the wider Muslim world.