Man killed in Berlin church confirmed as Israeli

A dead man found beaten beyond recognition in the ruins of a Gothic church in Berlin was an Israeli citizen, the Israeli Embassy there said on Wednesday.

Passersby had reported finding the body early Sunday at the site, near Berlin’s City Hall, and the embassy said in a brief statement that it had received confirmation of the victim’s identity.

“The name of the dead man will not be released for now out of respect for his loved ones,” it said.

The statement did not provide further details, although he daily Bild newspaper reported that the victim was 22 years old.

Israeli officials do not believe the killing was a hate crime, although the possibility has not been ruled out, Channel 2 reported.

The man had approached the Jewish community last week asking for food and a place to sleep, a rabbi said Wednesday.

His body was found in the ruins of the 14th century Church of the Franciscan Monastery, which was destroyed during World War II, an area frequented by the homeless.

He suffered massive head injuries that made it difficult to identify the body.

Police said they have opened a murder investigation.

Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal told The Associated Press that the Israeli, who had suffered massive head injuries, was a “man in his early 20s who came to us during the day last Friday and didn’t have a place to sleep and didn’t have anything to eat.”

Teichtal, who is a community rabbi in Berlin and also the head of the Chabad Jewish Education Center in the city, said a fellow rabbi arranged a place to sleep for the man at a community center near Alexanderplatz — less than a kilometer from where the victim was found Sunday morning.

“We arranged everything for him, but then he didn’t show up again,” Teichtal said.

Three people have come forward with information in the case, police said without providing further details.

In recent months, police have stepped up patrols around Alexanderplatz in an attempt to crack down on violent crime.

Despite Germany’s past as home of the Nazis who organized the Holocaust of Europe’s Jews, Berlin has become a popular destination for Israeli tourists in recent years.

Some 20,000 to 30,000 Israelis, mostly young people, have moved to Berlin in recent years.