A 26-year-old man has turned himself into police, saying he was liable for the Solingen knife assault that left three useless and eight wounded at a competition marking town’s 650th anniversary, German authorities introduced Sunday.
Duesseldorf police mentioned in a joint assertion with the prosecutor’s workplace that the person “acknowledged that he was liable for the assault.”
“This particular person’s involvement within the crime is presently being intensively investigated,” the assertion mentioned. Federal prosecutors mentioned they had been investigating on suspicion of homicide, tried homicide and membership in a international terrorist group.
The suspect, sporting handcuffs and leg shackles, was taken later Sunday from the police station in Solingen to make a primary look earlier than a choose on the Federal Court docket of Justice in Karlsruhe.
The suspect is a Syrian citizen who had utilized for asylum in Germany, police confirmed to The Related Press. The dpa information company reported, with out citing a selected supply, that his asylum declare had been denied and that he was to have been deported final 12 months. On Saturday, the Islamic State militant group claimed duty for the assault, with out offering proof.
The extremist group mentioned on its information web site that the attacker focused Christians and that the perpetrator carried out the assaults Friday evening “to avenge Muslims in Palestine and in all places.”
The declare couldn’t be independently verified. Solely a small variety of claims on the positioning have turned out to be utterly baseless, mentioned Peter Neumann, professor of safety research at King’s Faculty London.
Nonetheless “ISIS’ technique for numerous years has been to assert assaults that are merely ‘impressed’, in different phrases, wherein the hyperlink between group and attacker is merely ideological.”
Friday’s assault plunged town of Solingen into shock and grief. A metropolis of about 160,000 residents close to the larger cities of Cologne and Duesseldorf, Solingen was holding a “Pageant of Range” to rejoice its anniversary.
Individuals alerted police shortly after 9:30 p.m. native time Friday {that a} man had assaulted a number of folks with a knife on town’s central sq., the Fronhof.
The three folks killed had been two males aged 67 and 56 and a 56-year-old girl, authorities mentioned. Police mentioned the attacker appeared to have intentionally aimed for his victims’ throats.
The competition, which was because of have run by Sunday, was canceled as police appeared for clues within the cordoned-off sq.. As a substitute, residents gathered to mourn the useless and injured, putting flowers and notes close to the scene of the assault.“Warum?” requested one signal positioned amid candles and teddy bears. Why?
Amongst these asking themselves the query was 62-year-old Wire Boetther, a service provider from Solingen. “Why does one thing like this should be carried out? It’s incomprehensible and it hurts,” Boetther mentioned.
Officers had earlier mentioned a 15-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion he knew concerning the deliberate assault and failed to tell authorities, however that he was not the attacker.
Two feminine witnesses informed police they overheard the boy and an unknown particular person earlier than the assault talking about intentions that corresponded to the bloodshed, officers mentioned.
The assault comes amid debate over immigration forward of regional elections subsequent Sunday in Germany’s Saxony and Thueringia areas the place anti-immigration events such because the populist Various for Germany are anticipated to do properly.
In June, Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed that the nation would begin deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria once more after a knife assault by an Afghan immigrant left one police officer useless and 4 extra folks injured.
The IS militant group declared its caliphate in giant components of Iraq and Syria a few decade in the past, however now holds no management over any land and has misplaced many distinguished leaders.
The group is generally out of world information headlines. Nonetheless, it continues to recruit members and declare duty for lethal assaults around the globe, together with deadly operations in Iran and Russia earlier this 12 months that killed dozens of individuals.
Its sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq nonetheless perform assaults on authorities forces in each nations in addition to US backed Syrian fighters.
