German police have detained a suspect accused of stabbing to death three people at a music festival in the western city of Solingen on Friday in an attack which sent shockwaves through the country.
The suspect was detained at a refugee shelter following a major manhunt which saw authorities establish “extensive search measures” throughout the German state of North Rhine Westphalia and deploy special forces. Police had earlier arrested a 15-year-old boy in connection with the incident, but said he was not the alleged attacker.
“We have just recently arrested the real suspect. And now he’s being questioned and everything else is being clarified and then we can also say: Are we right? Do we have enough evidence? I can only tell you that it’s now more than just an assumption,“ Northrhine-Westfalia’s interior minister Herbert Reul told German public broadcaster ARD on Sunday.
“Not only did we have a lead on this person, we also found evidence,“ he added.
Prior to the suspect’s arrest, people in the city of Solingen had been warned to exercise caution and be on alert while the perpetrator remained on the run. For hours after the attack, authorities were unable to present a clear picture of what the suspect might look like.
Those killed have been revealed as two men aged 67 and 56, and a woman aged 56. Eight others were injured, including four with life-threatening injuries.
A motivation for the attack has not yet been determined but terrorism has not been ruled out.
While Islamic State claimed responsibility through its Amaq news service, it offered no evidence to back up its claim.
A police spokesman, Thorsten Fleiß, said the attacker specifically targeted the necks of his victims. “After evaluating the initial images, we assume that it was a very targeted attack on the neck,” he said during a press conference.
Several people were stabbed, apparently at random, in the attack at a central square in the city of Solingen on Friday evening, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of Düsseldorf, police said.
Crowds had gathered at the square in Solingen Friday to celebrate the “Festival of Diversity,” a three-day event marking the 650th anniversary of the city’s founding. Police say the attack happened close to the stage where a musical act was performing.
Eyewitness Lars Breitzke said the attack happened just meters away from him. Speaking to local newspaper the Solinger Tageblatt, Breitzke said he realized something was wrong by the expression on the face of the singer on stage. Then, he said, “a person just meters away from me fell down.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the attack as an “upsetting” and “terrible” event.
Friday’s attack came amid rising rates of knife crime in Germany, recently prompting the Interior Ministry to propose tightened laws to tackle the issue.
Police data shows that there were 8,951 incidents of knife crime that caused serious bodily harm in Germany in 2023 – 791 cases more than the previous year.
This is a developing story and will be updated.