A woman has escaped jail after stabbing a man she said harassed her at a train station to death, leaving his family shocked at what they believe was a lenient sentence.
Failyn Ball fatally stabbed Alem Tekeste to death at the top of an escalator in Kaiserslautern Hauptbahnhof, a train station in Kaiserslautern, southwest Germany. The 21-year-old American woman “acted in self-defence but then deliberately advanced on” Mr Tekeste, 64, a German citizen born in Eritrea, after he grabbed her from behind in summer 2024, judges presiding over her trial in the city court agreed. Ball was facing a decade behind bars for the attack, which was said to have killed Mr Tekeste in a matter of seconds.
But judges ruled she was technically a juvenile under German law at the time and lowered before suspending her sentence. The Kaiserlautern court was shown footage of the attack, which took place last summer at the train station.
The trial heard that Mr Tekeste had grabbed Ball from behind during the incident. Ball, who was born in Germany but has US citizenship, said she tried to push the man away but then reached for the knife.
She said she plunged it into his heart in one swift movement. Footage of the attack was played in court, during which Mr Tekeste’s wife and children left the courtroom in tears.
The trial also heard that Mr Tekeste had allegedly sexually harassed Ball before. As part of the trial, Ball was taken to the train station concourse where the attack took place. She is said to have handed herself into police days after Mr Tekeste died.
Prosecutors asked for a sentence of 21 months, saying she had stabbed Mr Tekeste, but not with the intenion of killing him. However, the court raised that sentence to 24 months suspended after deciding it was manslaughter.
Ball was also ordered to carry out 500 hours of community service and to undergo drug rehabilitation treatment. Mr Tekeste was born in Eritrea but had lived in Germany since 1980 and was a German citizen. The Mercedes worker was travelling to visit his son for his birthday when he was killed at the train station.
Speaking to the MailOnline, Mr Tekeste’s family lawyer Dawit Stifnos said: “There was never going to be justice for Alem, a father of two and a German citizen, the prosecutor was better than her defence. The court acknowledged it was manslaughter but still only gave her two years suspended sentence, she walked out, with her passport, and will now just go back to America.
“Alem was a father, husband, brother and this is how he was treated after paying his German taxes, the verdict implies that his life is worth nothing. His family are devastated by the verdict, and I will be appealing, the fact she was walking round in broad daylight with a knife should have been addressed.
“The court agreed that she adopted a defence stance and then later changed to attack and footage shows her stabbing him in the chest. He was a 64-year-old man, she was half his age, she didn’t need to stab him with a knife.”
When prosecutors announced they would be bringing the case to trial at the end of last year, tech billionaire Elon Musk took to his X account to comment on it, asking: “What is wrong with Germany?” This outraged Mr Tekeste’s family who responded in an interview with the MailOnline: “When I saw Musk and what he wrote on social media I was so angry.
“They say [Mr Tekeste] grabbed the backside of the girl. He may have, who knows… But if he did, does it really warrant such a violent, extreme reaction? Stabbed once directly in the heart as he was backing away.”
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