German police have detained a suspect accused of stabbing to death three people at a music festival in the western city of Solingen on Friday in an attack which sent shockwaves through the country. <\/p>\n
The suspect was detained at a refugee shelter following a major manhunt which saw authorities establish \u201cextensive search measures\u201d throughout the German state of North Rhine Westphalia and deploy special forces. Police had earlier arrested a 15-year-old boy in connection with the incident, but said he was not the alleged attacker. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have just recently arrested the real suspect. And now he\u2019s being questioned and everything else is being clarified and then we can also say: Are we right? Do we have enough evidence? I can only tell you that it\u2019s now more than just an assumption,\u201c Northrhine-Westfalia\u2019s interior minister Herbert Reul told German public broadcaster ARD on Sunday. <\/p>\n
\u201cNot only did we have a lead on this person, we also found evidence,\u201c he added. <\/p>\n
Prior to the suspect\u2019s arrest, people in the city of Solingen had been warned to exercise caution and be on alert while the perpetrator remained on the run. For hours after the attack, authorities were unable to present a clear picture of what the suspect might look like. <\/p>\n
Those killed have been revealed as two men aged 67 and 56, and a woman aged 56. Eight others were injured, including four with life-threatening injuries. <\/p>\n
A motivation for the attack has not yet been determined but <\/strong>terrorism has not been ruled out. <\/p>\n While Islamic State claimed responsibility through its Amaq news service, it offered no evidence to back up its claim. <\/p>\n A police spokesman, Thorsten Flei\u00df, said the attacker specifically targeted the necks of his victims. \u201cAfter evaluating the initial images, we assume that it was a very targeted attack on the neck,\u201d he said during a press conference. <\/p>\n Several people were stabbed, apparently at random, in the attack at a central square in the city of Solingen on Friday evening, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of D\u00fcsseldorf, police said. <\/p>\n Crowds had gathered at the square in Solingen Friday to celebrate the \u201cFestival of Diversity,\u201d a three-day event marking the 650th anniversary of the city\u2019s founding. Police say the attack happened close to the stage where a musical act was performing. <\/p>\n Eyewitness Lars Breitzke said the attack happened just meters away from him. Speaking to local newspaper the Solinger Tageblatt, Breitzke said he realized something was wrong by the expression on the face of the singer on stage. Then, he said, \u201ca person just meters away from me fell down.\u201d <\/p>\n German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the attack as an \u201cupsetting\u201d and \u201cterrible\u201d event. <\/p>\n Friday\u2019s attack came amid rising rates of knife crime in Germany, recently prompting the Interior Ministry to propose tightened laws to tackle the issue. <\/p>\n Police data shows that there were 8,951 incidents of knife crime that caused serious bodily harm in Germany in 2023 \u2013 791 cases more than the previous year. <\/p>\n This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/i> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" German police have detained a suspect accused of stabbing to death three people at a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}