Police officers on Sunday lead the Solingen knife attack suspect out of the helicopter to his arraignment at the Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe, Germany. Photo by Ronald Wittek/EPA-EFE
Aug. 25 (UPI) — A 26-year-old man, who is a refugee from Syria, has confessed to a mass knife attack at a street festival in Germany, police said Sunday. Late Saturday, German authorities said a male suspect was arrested in connection with stabbing attack Friday in Solingen, Germany, during a “Festival of Diversity” that killed three and injured eight others.
“The man we’ve really been looking for the whole day has just been taken into custody,” Herbert Reul, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, told ARD public TV late on Saturday.
The Islamic State militant group earlier Saturday claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on Telegram. The killings were “in revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere,” Islamic State said.
“The involvement of this person is currently under intensive investigation,” prosecutors and Düsseldorf police said Sunday.
A police spokesman said during a news conference “after evaluating the initial images, we assume that it was a very targeted attack on the neck.”
The suspect surrendered himself in dirty blood-stained clothes, Germany’s Bild and Spiegel news websites reported.
He was seen dragged from a helicopter to his arraignment at the Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe, Germany by federal police officers.
He reportedly arrived in Germany in December 2022, after leaving the war-torn country and seeking asylum.
Special task force officers stormed a refugee center that the suspect was associated with, detaining another person there, Bild reported. The center is less than 1,000 feet from Fronhof-Solingen’s central market square where people were stabbed.
The dead are two men, ages 56 and 67, and a 56-year-old woman.
Police arrested a 15-year-old boy but said he is not the prime suspect. The teen was arrested after two women reported hearing him and another person discussing the attack.
Friday was the first day of the three-day event that celebrates the 650th anniversary of the founding of the city of Solingen in western Germany. It has around 160,000 residents.