Germany Suspect in custody after Solingen knife attack

The suspect in the Solingen knife attack that left three people dead has been remanded in custody. An investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe has issued an arrest warrant on suspicion of membership of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia and murder, among other things, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office announced.

The Syrian shared the ideology of the terrorist organization IS and had joined it at a time before August 23rd that cannot be precisely determined at present, according to the statement. Because of his radical Islamist convictions, he had decided to kill as many people as possible at the Solingen city festival who he considered to be infidels, the authorities said.

"There he stabbed the festival visitors repeatedly and deliberately in the neck and upper body area with a knife." The perpetrator then escaped in the commotion and initial panic.

According to the police, the 26-year-old Syrian surrendered to investigators on Saturday evening. He claimed to be responsible for the attack. A deportation of the suspected asylum seeker from Syria had failed last year.

Seriously injured on the road to recovery

Two men aged 67 and 56 and a 56-year-old woman died in the knife attack. Eight people were injured, four of them seriously.

All patients still receiving inpatient treatment are over the hill, said the medical director at Solingen Municipal Hospital, Thomas Standl, to the television station Welt TV. "All four patients have a very good chance of making a full recovery." The psychological consequences, however, are not yet foreseeable.

The attack in Solingen caused great shock throughout Germany. The terrorist militia IS claimed responsibility for it.

Federal Public Prosecutor General calls Islamist terror the main threat to Germany

The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office is responsible, among other things, for acts of Islamist-motivated terrorism. Federal Public Prosecutor General Jens Rommel identified this as one of the main threats to Germany in his office's annual review. According to Rommel, almost 500 of the more than 700 terrorism and state security investigations opened last year concerned Islamist terrorism.

The suspect was flown to Karlsruhe by helicopter. Two heavily armed police officers in special equipment brought the barefoot man to a motorcade that drove him to the Federal Supreme Court. One of the officers pushed down the head of the suspect, who was also shackled at the feet. In this stooped position, the man barely took a step himself and the officers carried him to the vehicles.

SDA