Police have arrested the person suspected of carrying out the stabbing attack at a festival in Germany.
A 56-year-old woman and two men, aged 56 and 67, died following the attack in the city of Solingen on Friday. Eight people were injured, four seriously, while “many other people have suffered mental stress”.
Police said the attacker appeared to have deliberately aimed for his victims’ throats.
The state internal affairs minister of North Rhein Westphalia, Herbert Reul, told the German public television network ARD on Saturday night: “We have been following a hot lead all day.
“The person we have been searching for all day has been detained a short while ago.”
Mr Reul added that police not only have “clues” but also have collected “pieces of evidence”.
The suspect is now in police custody and being questioned.
Tributes are being left at the scene. Pic: Reuters
Earlier on Saturday a 15-year-old boy was previously arrested suspected of failing “to report an imminent crime,” but police and prosecutors said at a news conference in the afternoon that there were no further suspicions.
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Police also made another arrest in connection with the attack.
They said the arrest followed an operation to access a building housing asylum seekers in Solingen as part of their investigation.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack but offered no immediate evidence to support their claim.
A security source told the IS-affiliated media arm Amaq Agency that the suspect “was a soldier from the Islamic State, and he carried it out as revenge against Muslims in Palestine and everywhere”.
Chief of police operations Thorsten Fleiss said officers were conducting various searches and investigations in the entire state of North Rhine Westphalia.
He said it was a “big challenge” to bring together available evidence and testimony from witnesses in order to come up with an overall picture.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Fleiss also said police had found several knives but added he was unable to confirm whether any of them had been used as weapon by the perpetrator during the attack.
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