Solingen Stabbing Latest: German Police Arrest Man Suspected Of Killing Three People At Festival
German festival stabbing: Police make second arrest as Islamic State claims responsibility for attack
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German police have arrested a man suspected of carrying out the Solingen knife attack that has left three dead and eight injured.
Specialist policing units were searching for a man after a 56-year-old woman and two men, aged 56 and 67, died following the attack on Friday night.
The attack happened as thousands gathered at the central square for a festival to mark the city’s 650th anniversary.
On Saturday night, North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister Herbert Reul said: “The real suspect is the one that we’ve arrested just now.”
The individual is being questioned and evidence had been seized, he said.
Earlier on Saturday, Islamic State claimed responsibility on Telegram, saying that the attacker was a “soldier of the Islamic State”, without providing any immediate supporting evidence.
Counterterrorism officer Markus Caspers said that the possibility of a terrorism motive “cannot be ruled out”.
“We are full of shock and grief,” Solingen Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach told journalists on Saturday.
1724564225Suspect is Syrian man, 26, who admitted to crime, police sayThe suspect in custody for a stabbing rampage in 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.
The details provide a somewhat fuller picture of an account late on Saturday by a state official who announced on German television the arrest of the man that authorities had been searching for in the 24 hours since the attack.
The attack, for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility, occurred on Friday evening at a festival to celebrate the city’s 650-year history.
The suspect is affiliated with a home for refugees in Solingen that had been searched on Saturday, authorities said.
Der Spiegel, citing unidentified security sources, said that the suspect’s clothes had been smeared with blood.
The police declined immediate comment on the Spiegel report.
Hendrik Wuest, premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, on Saturday described the attack as an act of terror.
Stuti Mishra25 August 2024 06:37
