The attack took place on Friday evening in the centre of Solingen, where a concert was taking place on the Fronhof market to celebrate the city’s 650th anniversary. The number of victims has changed in subsequent reports. According to the latest information, three people died and eight were injured. Five of them have serious injuries.
Police announced that the fatalities were two men, aged 67 and 56, and a 56-year-old woman.
Police in the city center after the knife attack in SolingenPAP/EPA/Volker Hartmann
Suspect in police custody
Late on Saturday evening, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Herbert Reul, announced on public television ARD that German police had arrested a person suspected of stabbing. “The person we have been looking for all day has only recently been in custody,” Herbert Reul told ARD’s Tagesthemen program. He added that he was currently being questioned.
According to Reul, the man who was detained lived in a refugee center where a large police operation involving special units had previously been carried out.
Earlier that day, the media reported that two people had been detained. On Saturday afternoon, Reuters reported that police had detained one person and were investigating whether he was connected to the attack. Police later said that the person detained was a 15-year-old. However, he is not a suspect in the stabbing. The teenager is suspected of failing to report planned crimes. Another person allegedly spoke to him about plans that “fit” the attack in Solingen. Investigators assume that the crime was committed by one person.
On Saturday evening, police searched a refugee shelter in the city center. “We received information and are currently conducting police operations on this basis,” a police spokesman said. “The shelter is located about 300 meters from the site of the attack and 150 meters from where investigators found a suspected murder weapon in the afternoon,” Bild wrote.
A second suspect was detained at the centre on Saturday evening. Their connection to the attack is being investigated. As “Bild” has learned, a police sniffer dog led investigators directly from the place where the knife was found to the centre. Then a special unit surrounded the building and finally attacked it at 8:18 p.m. The police said they could not provide any more details about this person or their connection to the attack.
The knife-man was supposed to have aimed for the throats
Earlier, police reported that it was not known who the perpetrator was or what his motive was. They reported that the attack was being treated as a terrorist attack. According to police, the assailant deliberately aimed for the victims’ throats.
Prosecutor Markus Caspers said at a press conference that the motive for the crime had not yet been determined. “Based on the general circumstances, we assume that the initial suspicion of a crime motivated by terrorism cannot be ruled out,” he said.
– The police are following many leads. The situation is changing by the minute. There are many leads, but the police do not want to give any details yet, said Thorsten Fleiss, the police commander in Duesseldorf.
Flowers near the scene of the knife attack in SolingenPAP/EPA/Volker Hartmann
The so-called Islamic State has confessed
The so-called Islamic State has said in a statement that it is responsible for the attack in Solingen. The attacker “is a soldier of the Islamic State and has taken revenge for Muslims in Palestine and all other places,” the statement was quoted by the German weekly “Zeit” as saying. The message was published by media channels belonging to the IS and corresponds in form, content and language to earlier statements by the terrorist group that later turned out to be true. The letter did not mention the perpetrator’s name, “Zeit” wrote.
German Interior Minister: Brutal attack
“The brutal attack on the Solingen festival has shaken us to our core. We mourn the lives of those whose lives have been taken in such a terrible way. My thoughts are with the families of those killed and seriously injured,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wrote on social media.
“Our security authorities are doing everything they can to catch the perpetrator and establish the background to the attack,” she said. She added that the local police have the full support of the federal government. “I am in constant contact with the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Herbert Reul, and our security authorities,” she said.
Germany. Knife attack during Solingen festival
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“Attack on the city”
Shortly after Friday’s attack, police surrounded the market square, where thousands of people had gathered. Helicopters circled the city. Solingen’s 650th anniversary festival, which was to last until Sunday, was interrupted.
“It breaks my heart that our city has been attacked. I have tears in my eyes when I think of those we have lost. I pray for all those who are still fighting for their lives,” Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach said in a statement on Friday.
Solingen has around 160,000 inhabitants and is located near Cologne and Duesseldorf in the west of the country.
There are fatalities and injuriesReuters
photo-source">Main photo source: PAP/EPA/CHRISTOPHER NEUNDORF
