German police have arrested the suspect behind the stabbing attack in the western city of Solingen on the 650th anniversary of the city that killed three people.
According to Reuters, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, Herbert Reul, told ARD public TV late on Saturday, August 24, “The man we have really been looking for the whole day has just been taken into custody.”
He said that the police spent the whole day in a manhunt and made two arrests, but they were not the perpetrators.
As per the interior minister, the man they have arrested after a ‘hot lead’ is ‘the real suspect.’ Evidence has been seized from the suspect, and the investigation and questioning of the individual are underway.
Reul did not provide any details of the suspect; however, German news websites Bild and Spiegel claimed that the suspect was in dirty, blood-stained clothes and had given himself up to the police.
Moreover, the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, killing two men, aged 56 and 67, and a 56-year-old woman while leaving eight injured and many others with ‘mental stress.’
The militant group, in a statement on Telegram, described the attacker as a ‘soldier of the Islamic State’ and said, “He carried out the attack in revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere."
Meanwhile, the police have not yet confirmed the involvement of the Islamic State group in the stabbing attack.
