The facts at hand presumably speak for themselves, but a trifle more vulgarly, I suspect, than facts even usually do. The German-language news outlet TAG24 reported Wednesday that a man identified only as “Edris Z.” had carried out “a coldly planned revenge murder” against his former girlfriend, a “refugee aid worker had previously denounced the Afghan-born man under the Protection Against Violence Act.” This is horrific enough, but it gets even worse: Edris Z. was in the past hailed as a model migrant, and even dubbed an “Ambassador of Saxony.”

TAG24 states that Edris emigrated from Afghanistan to Germany in 1995, that is, well before Angela Merkel initiated the mass Muslim migration that has inundated Germany in the last few years. Back in 1995, some people might even have still been so hidebound as to expect that an immigrant would strive to assimilate and adopt the customs and mores of the country that had welcomed him. And indeed, it seemed for a time as if Edris Z. was a quintessential example of an assimilated migrant. According to TAG24, in 2006, when Edris had been in Germany for eleven years, former Saxon Prime Minister Georg Milbradt dubbed him an “ambassador of Saxony,” an honor that was given to Edris as a “prime example of successful integration.” The upstanding and exemplary young man was granted German citizenship in 2015.

But “on the morning of April 8, Myriam Z. (37 years old) put on her baby carrier, carefully put her two-and-a-half-month-old daughter Ava in it, and went for a walk in the southern Auwald forest. According to the indictment, Edris Z. was also staying there. Not by chance. But with a hammer in his backpack and the plan to kill someone.” Why? Because “Edris and Myriam were once a couple. Both worked as social workers in refugee aid. The young Afghan never got over the fact that the self-confident woman separated from him at some point. According to the investigation, Edris Z. has been stalking his ex-girlfriend since then. And he became violent: When Edris Z. saw Myriam in the company of another man in August 2018, he is said to have attacked him.”

The prosecution described “a wild biting attack, and the accused is also alleged to have attempted to gouge out the eyes of the migrant rival (25 years old) with his fingernails. The victim suffered severe injuries to his eyes and bite wounds all over his body, and a piece of his ear was also missing afterwards.”

After that, Myriam reported Edris and received a restraining order against him by means of Germany’s Violence Protection Act. However, TAG24 states that “apparently that was her death sentence. In the murder charges, prosecutors assume that Z. killed his ex-girlfriend in order to punish her for having reported him. The stalker therefore approached the young mother from behind and smashed her skull with the hammer.”

The ambassador of Saxony was exceptionally cruel: “Even when Myriam fell to the ground, she lay down protectively over her baby and therefore had no free hand to protect her head, but the defendant is said to have continued to thrash her. The prosecution lists at least ten blows, including four on the head, in relation to the forensic examination.”

One of the most commonly repeated elements of the Leftist/Islamic supremacist rap sheet against me, supposedly establishing that I am an “anti-Muslim extremist,” is that I said that there was no reliable way to distinguish between peaceful Muslims and jihadists, and no distinction between the two in Muslim communities. This statement doesn’t mean that all Muslims are terrorists; it means that peaceful Muslims aren’t separating themselves from the terrorists. All too many jihadis have operated freely in American mosques without being put out. After a Muslim who supported the Islamic State shot a police officer in Philadelphia, the local mosque leaders initially denied knowing him, but then it turned out they were lying, and the jihadi attended the mosque frequently. The same thing happened after jihadis attacked our free speech event in Garland, Texas: the mosque they attended in Phoenix denied knowing them, but it turned out they were regular members.

In a similar vein, this Edris Z. was hailed as an “ambassador of Saxony” for his success in assimilating into German society. But it seems as if he still carried within him some of the attitudes and assumptions created by a culture of violence that mandates the beating of women “from whom you fear disobedience” (Qur’an 4:34).

Yet no one could have predicted that this would happen, as there is, here again, no reliable way to distinguish between peaceful Muslims and violent ones. Instead of heaping abuse upon those who point this out, genuinely peaceful Muslims should be working hard to establish such a distinction.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.