Suspect and public appeal
Police said the attack followed a verbal dispute at about 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 24. Ruhr Nachrichten gives that date in its report, though an accompanying photo caption says April 25.
The unidentified suspect was a passenger in a car with a Duisburg license plate, according to police. He was wearing a black shirt, black pants and white shoes.
The photos are available on the North Rhine-Westphalia police wanted-persons portal. Anyone who recognizes the man or has information about his identity is asked to call Lüdinghausen police at 02591/793711.
Legal basis for the investigation and photo release
The court authorized publication under Germany's rules for public searches using images. According to the Federal Criminal Police Office, such searches under sections 131 and following of the Code of Criminal Procedure generally require an order from a court or prosecutor. They are permitted only for an offense of considerable significance, when other ways of locating the suspect would be considerably less promising or substantially more difficult.
The offense under investigation, dangerous bodily harm, is covered by section 224 of Germany's Criminal Code. The provision sets a prison term of six months to ten years, or three months to five years in less serious cases, according to the Federal Ministry of Justice's legal text.
The law specifies five methods of committing the offense. These include using a weapon or another dangerous tool, carrying out a treacherous ambush, acting jointly with another participant, or subjecting someone to life-endangering treatment. An attempted offense is also punishable.
Local and statewide crime figures
Police recorded 61 bodily harm cases in Ascheberg in 2025 and cleared about 90 percent of them. The municipality's statistics did not list dangerous bodily harm as a separate offense. Bodily harm belongs to the German statistical category known as Rohheitsdelikte, which also includes robbery and robbery-type extortion.
Statewide, police recorded about 39,000 cases of dangerous and serious bodily harm in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2025, down 3.1 percent from the previous year. The clearance rate for violent offenses was 84 percent. Those figures were included in the state's 2025 police crime statistics, presented by Interior Minister Herbert Reul on March 2, 2026.
