German prosecutors said Thursday they have charged a Syrian with killing one man and seriously injuring another in a knife attack they believe was motivated by Islamist extremism.

Named as Abdullah A. H. H., the suspect is accused of murder, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm motivated by "radical Islamist convictions," prosecutors in the city of Karlsruhe said.

The two men aged 55 and 53 were attacked in Dresden city centre on October 4, 2020, with the older man later dying in hospital.

They were a gay couple, according to several media reports.

"He had chosen the two victims to punish them with death as representatives of a free and open social order which he rejected as 'infidel'," prosecutors said.

The case could be the first example of attempted murder by an Islamist motivated by homophobia in Germany, according to Der Spiegel weekly.

The suspect, who was 20 at the time of the attack, was arrested on October 21, with prosecutors announcing the case was being investigated as a terrorist attack.

The fatal attack fuelled a debate about the deportation of foreign criminals from Germany, as the suspect had several previous convictions and a history of involvement with the Islamist scene.

He had been living in Germany under "tolerated" status granted to people whose asylum requests have been rejected, but who cannot be deported.

He had been under surveillance after being released from a juvenile detention centre days before the attack.

Islamists have carried out several violent attacks in Germany in recent years. The worst such incident was a truck ramming assault at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people.

fec/hmn/pvh