SOLINGEN (AFP) – German police said on Sunday that a Syrian man has given himself up and confessed to killing three people and wounding eight others in a knife rampage at a street festival.
Friday’s random attack amid thousands of people gathered for the festival in the western city of Solingen stunned Germany.
Two men aged 56 and 67 and a 56-year-old woman were killed, officials said. Four of the wounded remained in serious condition. All of the victims were stabbed in the neck, according to police.
Police said in a statement that the suspect was a 26-year-old Syrian who had “given himself up to authorities in charge of the investigation and declared himself responsible for the attack”.
Officers arrested a suspect in a raid at a hostel for asylum seekers on Saturday, not far from the scene of the attack, a police spokesman told AFP.
North Rhine-Westphalia state interior minister Herbert Reul said police had evidence linking the man to the knife attacks.
Police have also arrested a 15-year-old suspected of failing to report a criminal act. Witnesses had allegedly seen the teen discussing the attack, said Markus Caspers, prosecutor of Duesseldorf, just west of Solingen.
The attack late on Friday took place as thousands of people gathered for the first night of a “Festival of Diversity”, part of a series of events to mark Solingen’s 650th anniversary.
