26 year old man He was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of stabbing three people at a festival in the German city of Solingen the day before.
The suspect, a Syrian national who had applied for asylum in Germany, turned himself in to police and “stated that he was responsible for the attack,” Dusseldorf police and the prosecutor's office said in a statement Saturday (via NBC News). “This person's involvement in the crime is currently under intensive investigation,” the statement added.
Following the knife attack that left three people dead and eight injured – four of whom remain in hospital in life-threatening condition – police have arrested two people, one of them a 15-year-old, whom they believe were involved in the incident. However, North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul said on Saturday that these two individuals were not the perpetrator and that “the real suspect is the person we have now arrested.”
A 67-year-old man, a 56-year-old man and a 56-year-old woman were killed in a knife attack in Solingen, a city in western Germany that was hosting a “Diversity Festival” to celebrate its 650th anniversary.
A German DJ named Tobias Topek was playing music during the incident, and security personnel asked him to continue his show amid the attack in order to prevent mass panic. Topek's show was eventually cancelled after 15 minutes.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack via its news agency, adding that the attacker targeted Christians and was a “soldier of the Islamic State.” German police are still investigating the allegations. A police spokesman said the suspect targeted the victims' necks, CNN reported.
“This evening, we are all in Solingen in shock, horror and deep sadness. We all wanted to celebrate our city’s anniversary together and now we have to mourn the dead and wounded,” Solingen Mayor Tim Kurzbach wrote on social media after the attack. [his] “Eyes” on the missing.
In recent weeks, a similar stabbing attack occurred at a children's dance in Southport, England, which was themed by Taylor Swift, and a foiled terror plot in Vienna led to the cancellation of Swift's concerts in that Austrian city.
