An American woman, who accidentally stabbed an Eritrean to death, faces up to ten years in prison.

The young woman, 20, was standing at a German train station on an escalator, when a 65-year-old man grabbed her backside on June 29. The incident occurred at Kaiserslautern train station, in the southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

After realising what had happened, the woman turned around and drew a folding knife, gesturing towards the 64-year-old man, with stabbing movements. The woman explained to investigators that she ‘wanted to keep the mat at a distance’ and that when he, eventually, took a step back, so did she.

The man then grabbed at the arm that the woman was holding the knife in, and as the woman struggled to free herself she accidentally stabbed the man in the heart ‘during the same movement’. Prosecutors revealed that the man died within a matter of seconds, after being stabbed.

In the wake of the stabbing, the woman was charged with causing bodily harm that resulted in death and could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. The woman claimed that she had not intentionally aimed for the man’s heart and argued that she had been acting in self-defence in a bid to keep him at a distance.

A spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office told German newspaper , that: “The public prosecutor’s office does not believe that the stabbing was justified by self-defence”. However, after reviewing CCTV footage, prosecutors do not believe that the woman intentionally stabbed Eritrean in the heart, which is why she has not been charged with murder or manslaughter.

They believe that she wanted to cause injury to the man, but did not mean to kill him. Following the attack, a search for the woman was launched by police. Soon after the search began, she chose to turn herself in at a police station. She has been released and is currently awaiting the verdict from the youth court on whether the charge against the woman should be accepted.