Dresden,Germany - Alex W, on trial for the courtroom killing of a pregnant Egyptian woman in July, was described as an aggressive, lonely and unhappy man, a Dresden court heard on Monday. One witness to W's initial encounter with Marwa al-Shirbini said the 28 year-old became "immediately aggressive," when she had asked him to make way for her son on playground swings in August 2008.
Another witness said W's own mother, who had been present at the playground, had not been able to calm him down. Instead, he shouted racial abuse at al-Shirbini, who was wearing a headscarf at the time.
W is accused of stabbing to death the 31-year-old Egyptian during an appeal hearing in July, after he was ordered to pay a 330-euro (480-dollar) fine for his verbal abuse.
The 28-year-old German of Russian origin had previously threatened a man with a knife, said witness Ruslan S, describing an incident when W drew a knife on a fellow student during a training course.
A 21-year-old friend of W said he had entertained suicidal thoughts, adding, "I think he hated himself."
The fifth day of the murder trial was delayed after the defendant became upset over a newspaper interview his mother had given to the Sunday edition of German daily Bild.
W was so worked up over the interview, which he reportedly considered akin to betrayal by his own mother, that the lawyers briefly doubted his fitness to stand trial, the presiding judge said.
In the interview, the defendant's mother had begged for forgiveness. "I suffer with the family," Bild quoted the architect, adding that she was sorry for the killed woman, her unborn son and the child who had to watch the ordeal.
Her own son was in despair, W's mother said. "He does not want to live any more," she reportedly told the paper.
The July 1 killing - which occurred in the same building as the current trial - caused outrage in Egypt.
The accused Alex W has said nothing since the trial began, but at one point banged his head on a table, stamped his feet and yelled.
The 28-year-old unemployed defendant is charged with the racially motivated stabbing of al-Shirbini, as her 3-year-old child looked on, and also with wounding her husband who tried to save her.
A policeman who ran into the room shot her husband, a scientist, in error, thinking he was an assailant. He is due to testify this week.
The court psychologist has already filed a written report saying Russian-born W is sane.
Sergej G, a friend of the defendant, said he had never seen him behave aggressively.
"He never spoke roughly to anyone or wished anything bad," G told the court, adding that W suffered from loneliness.
"He had no ideas about the future, no goal, no purpose in his life," the 21-year-old said, adding that it was a shock when he heard what had happened. W and al-Shirbini were strangers until she asked him in August 2008 to stop occupying a child's swing at a public playground and let her son use it.
Over four days of hearings, the court has heard that W had never made close friends and had never held down a job. Witnesses described him as socially inept, eccentric and unashamedly hostile to Muslims.
