German police arrest 26-year-old man over stabbing attack in Solingen | Crime News

The police said the suspect is a Syrian national who turned himself in and confessed to committing the crime.

German police have arrested a suspect in a stabbing attack in the western city of Solingen that left three people dead and eight others injured.

The suspect, a 26-year-old Syrian man, turned himself in and confessed to the crime, Duesseldorf police and prosecutors said in a joint statement on Sunday.

“The involvement of this person is currently under intensive investigation,” they added.

The attack – which has not yet been verified – took place on Friday evening at a festival celebrating the 650th anniversary of the founding of the city of Solingen.

Late Saturday, a government official announced on German television the arrest of a man he said authorities had been searching for for 24 hours since the attack.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister, Herbert Reul, told ARD television he was “a bit relieved” after authorities spent the day following up on a “hot line” that led to the arrest.

Police spent the day conducting a manhunt and arrested two people who were likely not the perpetrator, Rowell said.

He said the real suspect was the person we just arrested, adding that the man was being questioned and evidence had been seized, adding that the man was linked to a refugee shelter that had been searched earlier in the day.

Earlier on Saturday, the prosecutor said another person had also been arrested: a 15-year-old boy suspected of failing to report a criminal act.

Markus Caspers, the public prosecutor in Duesseldorf, west of Solingen, said witnesses said they saw the teenager discussing the attack before it happened with a man who could be the killer.

According to Bild and Spiegel, the suspect is a 26-year-old Syrian who arrived in Germany in December 2022 and received protected immigration status, which is often granted to those fleeing war-torn countries.

He was not previously known to the security services as an “extremist,” according to media reports.

At its peak, ISIS controlled vast swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and carried out deadly attacks around the world. But the group faced territorial defeat in 2017, and its brutal rule collapsed after it lost territory to the Iraqi government and various sides in the Syrian civil war.

The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks in which it was not involved, including a mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.

Officials said the three people killed Friday were two men, aged 56 and 67, and a 56-year-old woman.

The victims “have no known relationships,” Caspers said at a news conference.

The attack took place as thousands of people gathered outside a theatre on the first night of the three-day diversity festival, which has now been cancelled.

Solingen is a city of about 150,000 inhabitants located between Düsseldorf and Cologne.