(Solingen) The main suspect in a deadly knife attack at a festival in Solingen, western Germany, claimed by the Islamic State group (IS), was arrested on Saturday, regional Interior Minister Herbert Reul announced.
“The man we have been looking for all day has recently been taken into custody at our premises,” North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul said on ARD public television.
“The real suspect, we have just arrested him,” he added, without giving details on the circumstances, but specifying that investigators had “evidentiary evidence.”
The Islamic State group (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack, which shocked Germany.
“The author of the attack on a gathering of Christians in the city of Solingen is a soldier” of the EI, the jihadist group had affirmed in the evening in a press release transmitted via its propaganda organ Amaq.
PHOTO ROBERTO PFEIL, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A woman lights a candle at a makeshift memorial for the victims of the Solingen knife attack.
The man acted “to avenge the Muslims of Palestine and everywhere else,” the text adds.
According to German newspapers Image And Spiegelthe arrested suspect is a 26-year-old Syrian, who arrived in Germany at the end of December 2022 where he benefits from subsidiary protection status, often granted to people fleeing this country in civil war.
He was not previously known to the security services as an Islamist extremist, both media outlets say.
The suspect surrendered to investigators, Bild reports.
“He will now be questioned” and investigators will carry out a number of checks, Mr Reul added.
Two other people were arrested on Saturday while the main suspect was still on the run.
The first is a 15-year-old boy suspected of “failure to report” a planned criminal act. Investigators are examining whether he may have been in contact with the perpetrator of the attack.
The second arrest took place on Saturday evening in a refugee shelter in Solingen, not far from the scene of the attack.
Two men aged 56 and 67, as well as a 56-year-old woman, were killed among thousands of spectators at a local party on Friday evening, and eight people were injured, four of them seriously.
“It was a very targeted attack on the neck” of the victims, noted local police chief Thorsten Fleiss after analyzing initial images.
Stay united
At the end of the day, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser visited Solingen, calling on the country to “remain united” in the face of this “horrible attack”.
PHOTO ROBERTO PFEIL, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The city centre of Solingen, a town of some 160,000 people, was packed with people on Friday evening for the launch of several days of festivities when the murderer struck.
“Let us not allow ourselves to be divided,” she said, while denouncing “those who want to sow hatred.”
The far-right AfD party has particularly blamed alleged shortcomings in security policy at regional and federal levels.
The coalition of Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces key regional elections in the east of the country in a week, where the AfD is far ahead of the governing parties in the polls.
“The culprit must be arrested quickly and punished to the full extent of the law,” urged the chancellor, who said he was “devastated,” on the X network.
The city of Solingen, a town of some 160,000 people, was packed with people on Friday evening for the launch of several days of festivities when the murderer struck.
The event was to celebrate the 650e anniversary of this city in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
PHOTO THILO SCHMUELGEN, REUTERS
A man writes a note while meditating near the scene of the attack.
Pools of blood
A witness told local daily Solinger Tageblatt that he was just a few metres from the attack, not far from the stage, and “understood from the singer’s facial expression that something was wrong”.
“And then, a meter away from me, a person fell,” said the man, Lars Breitzke. When he turned around, he saw people lying on the ground and several pools of blood.
“Our country is also in the crosshairs of jihadist organizations,” warned Minister Nancy Faeser on August 12, a threat that has been reinforced since the start of the conflict on October 7, 2023 between Israel and the Islamic movement Hamas.
The deadliest jihadist attack on German soil dates back to December 2016: a truck attack claimed by the Islamic State group left 12 dead at a Christmas market in the centre of Berlin.