Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Woman Stabbed To Death Month Before Testifying In High-Profile German Case

BERLIN (JTA) — A Jewish woman due to testify in court next month was found stabbed to death in a Frankfurt park.

The body of a woman identified as Irina A., age 29, was discovered on May 9. The woman allegedly had been involved in inventing a “sex-mob” story of mass rape and abuse by “foreigners” on New Year’s eve 2017 in Frankfurt. Police found no evidence of an incident and reportedly Irina A. was not even in the city at the time.

On Friday, police arrested the man charged for the false crime report along with her – identified publicly as the 50-year-old restaurateur Jan. M. – as a suspect in her brutal murder.

A man walking his dog in Nidda Park on Wednesday morning discovered the blood-smeared body of Irina A., who ran a real estate and jewelry business, according to news reports. An autopsy confirmed that her death was a murder. Her jewelry and purse were missing. Reportedly the attack left her face unrecognizable. Her white Mercedes later was found parked nearby.

News reports identified Irina A. as a member of Frankfurt’s Jewish community. Photographs show her wearing a silver Star of David pendant. A Facebook profile that apparently was hers has been changed to a “memorialized account.” Among her many friends is a restaurateur Jan. M.

Using cell phone records, police reportedly have placed him close to the crime scene. Traces of his blood were allegedly found there as well.

More than a year ago, on Feb. 6, 2017, Jan M. and Irina A. were interviewed in Germany’s most-read tabloid, Bild, about their claim of a “sex-mob” attack in Frankfurt. Jan M. said that when he approached Fressgas street in downtown Frankfurt “the whole place was crowded with a group of about 50 Arabs… The women were asking me to help them because they were being groped.” Irina A. added that “they grabbed me under my dress, between my legs, on my breasts, everywhere.”

The report was sensational but quickly debunked. The Bild’s editor apologized for the false news story and false accusations resulting from it.

In November 2017, Irina A. and Jan M. were charged with false reporting of a crime. The trial was to have started in June.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.