SOLINGEN, Germany: The suspect in custody for a stabbing rampage in the western German city of Solingen that killed three people and injured eight is a 26-year-old Syrian man, authorities said early on Sunday.
The suspect turned himself in and admitted to the crime, Duesseldorf police and prosecutors said in a joint statement.
“The involvement of this person is currently under intensive investigation,” they said.
Police carry evidence out of a refugee accommodation in Solingen, Germany, on August 24, 2024 during an operation linked to a knife attack on a city festival the night before. (AFP)
The attack, for which the Daesh group claimed responsibility, occurred on Friday evening in the Fronhof, a market square where live bands were playing at a festival to celebrate Solingen’s 650-year history. Mourners have made a makeshift memorial near the scene.
The arrest of the suspect threatens to stoke fears ahead of three state elections next month in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, which the anti-immigrant far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has a chance of winning.
The suspect came from a home for refugees in Solingen that was searched on Saturday, said North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister, Herbert Reul.
Der Spiegel, citing unidentified security sources, reported that the man moved to Germany late in 2022 and sought asylum, and that his clothes had been smeared with blood.
The police declined to comment on the Spiegel report.
Candles and flowers are pictured on August 24, 2024 near the area where three people were killed and several injured during a knife attack during a city festival in Solingen. (AFP)
Meanwhile, German federal prosecutors have taken over the case and are investigating whether the suspect was a member of Islamic State, a spokesperson for the prosecutors said.
The group described the man who carried out the attack as a “soldier of Daesh” in a statement on its Telegram account on Saturday: “He carried out the attack in revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.”
It did not immediately provide any evidence for its assertion and it was not clear how close any relationship between the attacker and Islamic State was.
Hendrik Wuest, premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, on Saturday described the attack as an act of terror.
Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has counted around a dozen Islamist-motivated attacks since 2000.
One of the biggest was in 2016, when a Tunisian drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 and injuring dozens.
“The risk of jihadist-motivated acts of violence remains high. The Federal Republic of Germany remains a direct target of terrorist organizations,” the BKA said in the report earlier this year.
On high alert
Germany has been on high alert for possible Islamist attacks after a series of atrocities.
Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza on October 7, the risk of Islamist plots has “worsened considerably,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said, warning that “the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high.”
Jihadists have carried out several attacks in Germany in recent years, the deadliest being a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in 2016 that killed 12.
A police officer was killed and five people were wounded in a knife attack at a far-right rally in the city of Mannheim in May, with an Islamist motive suspected.
Friday’s killing started as thousands of people had gathered in front of a stage for the festival’s first night.
Witness Lars Breitzke told the Solinger Tageblatt newspaper he was a few meters away from the attack, not far from the stage, and “understood from the expression on the singer’s face that something was wrong.”
“And then, a meter away from me, a person fell,” said Breitzke, who at first thought it was someone who had had too much to drink.
When he turned around, he saw other people lying on the ground amid pools of blood.
‘Shock and horror’
Solingen mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach said the whole city was in “shock, horror and great grief.”
Faeser called for the country to “remain united” as she denounced “those who want to stir up hatred” during a visit to the site of the tragedy. “Let us not be divided,” she said.
Solingen is a city of some 150,000 people located between Duesseldorf and Cologne.
People had gathered in the town on Friday evening for the first day of the three-day “Festival of Diversity” with music and shows scheduled.
Up to 75,000 visitors had been expected to attend.
After the attack, “people left the scene in shock, but calmly,” Philipp Mueller, one of the organizers, told the newspaper, adding that the rest of the festival was canceled.
Scholz’s center-left coalition faces regional elections next week in the east of the country, where the far-right AfD is leading strongly in the polls.
Germany took in more than a million asylum seekers in 2015-2016 at the height of Europe’s migrant crisis.
The influx was deeply divisive in Germany and fueled the popularity of the AfD.
