A man suspected of a deadly knife attack at a municipal festival in Solingen, western Germany, was arrested on Saturday, August 24, the day after the incident.
“The one we have been looking for all day has recently been taken into custody in our premises”said North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul on ARD public television. “The real suspect, we just arrested him”he added, specifying that investigators had “evidence”.
German police, who have been actively searching since Friday evening for the perpetrator of the attack which left three dead and was claimed by the Islamic State group (IS), arrested two people on Saturday.
“The perpetrator of the attack on a gathering of Christians in the city of Solingen is a soldier” of ISIS, the jihadist group said in a statement released through its propaganda outlet Amaq. The man acted “to avenge the Muslims of Palestine and everywhere else”added the text broadcast in the evening.
Two people arrested during the day, including a teenager
At the same time, a shelter for asylum seekers in Solingen was raided by special forces, leading to the arrest of a man. The police did not provide details on his identity or his possible involvement in the events. The shelter is located in the centre of Solingen, not far from the square where the attack took place.
Earlier in the day, investigators arrested a 15-year-old boy suspected of “non-denunciation” of a criminal act. Witnesses reported seeing him, shortly before the incident, discussing the attack with a man who could be the murderer, explained Düsseldorf's chief prosecutor, Markus Caspers.
Struck among thousands of spectators present at a local party on Friday evening, two men aged 56 and 67, as well as a 56-year-old woman, were killed, and eight people were injured, four seriously. “It was a very targeted attack on the neck.” victims, local police chief Thorsten Fleiss said after analyzing initial images.
“Let us not be divided”
At the end of the day, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser visited Solingen, calling on the country to “stay united” facing this “horrible attack”. “Let us not be divided”she said, while denouncing “those who want to sow hatred”.
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After the attack in Germany, the far-right AfD party has particularly blamed supposed shortcomings in security policy at the 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 fullest extent of the law.”urged the chancellor, who said “upset”on the X network.
Jihadist threat to Germany
The city centre of Solingen, a town of some 160,000 people, was packed with people on Friday night for the launch of several days of festivities when the killer struck. The event was to celebrate the 650the anniversary of this city in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and its cultural diversity. Investigators, searching for the murderer's weapon, seized several knives around the crime scene.
“Our country is also in the crosshairs of jihadist organizations”Minister Nancy Faeser had warned on August 12, a threat that had 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 twelve dead at a Christmas market in the centre of Berlin.
This summer, the Minister of the Interior announced that she wanted to ban knives longer than 6 centimetres from public spaces, with some members of the government coalition even calling for a total ban, in the face of a resurgence in knife attacks.
Source: Lemonde
