German authorities say suspect in deadly knife attack now in custody

BERLIN – German police investigating a deadly stabbing attack near Düsseldorf have a suspect in custody, authorities said early Sunday local time, hours after searching a refugee shelter in the area and announcing they were considering terrorism as a possible motive for the rampage that left three people dead.

Regional official Herbert Reul told German news media that a suspect was apprehended, about 24 hours after the attack at a festival in Solingen, about 15 miles east of Düsseldorf. Earlier Saturday, police arrested two people they said were linked to the attack, including one individual who was taken from a refugee center in the city, and another authorities said was a 15-year-old boy.

It was not clear whether the suspect was a refugee. Authorities said a knife-wielding assailant descended on festivalgoers late Friday and began stabbing random victims in the neck, killing three people and wounding eight others, four of whom were seriously injured.

At a news conference Saturday, officials said they believed the motive could have been terrorism. “The initial suspicion of a terrorist-motivated act cannot be ruled out,” said Markus Caspers, a senior public prosecutor in Düsseldorf. He said the victims had “no relationship with each other” and were apparently stabbed at random. The fatalities included two men, aged 67 and 56, and a 56-year-old woman.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack late Saturday, calling the assailant “a soldier” who attacked “a gathering of Christians in the city of Solingen.” The group, which once controlled wide swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, did not provide evidence for the claim, and German authorities did not comment on the statement.

It went on to say that the attacker “took revenge for the Muslims in Palestine and elsewhere,” an apparent reference to the war in Gaza. Police said Saturday that there was no specific terrorism threat ahead of the festival and that they did not have surveillance video of the event.

Solingen, located in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, is home to about 160,000 people. Like many cities in Germany, which has accepted millions of asylum seekers, it is also host to a number of refugees from countries such as Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

The festival the city held starting Friday, and which was scheduled to run through the weekend, was meant to celebrate Solingen’s 650th anniversary. The program for the event – which was expected to draw about 75,000 people – included live music, theater, cabaret and acrobatics, with food from all over the world.

On Saturday, after the festival was canceled, flowers, photos and candles were placed close to the scene of the attack. One message, written in German, simply read: “Warum?” or “Why?”

“This terror is intended to shake our way of life,” said Hendrik Wuest, state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia.

“But our country will not waver,” he said. “We will not be shaken by terror and hatred. We will defend our way of life.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the attack as “a terrible event that has shocked me greatly,” writing on social media Saturday that “the perpetrator must be caught quickly and punished to the full extent of the law.”

Solingen Mayor Tim Kurzbach said in a statement late Friday that the city was “in shock, horror and great sadness.”

“We all wanted to celebrate our city’s anniversary together and now we have to mourn dead and injured people,” he said, adding that he had “tears in (his) eyes” over those lost and was praying for the people fighting for their lives.

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Bisset and Hassan reported from London and Hentschke from Washington. Frances Vinall in Seoul and Sammy Westfall in Washington contributed reporting.