Police have arrested the person suspected of carrying out a knife attack that left three people dead at a festival in Germany, an official has said.

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 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.

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Tributes 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 its 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”.

There is a calm sadness hanging over the west German city of Solingen. A few metres away from the site where three festival-goers were fatally stabbed, locals lay candles in their honour.

The small memorial laid out on a rainbow flag grows gradually through the day. I watch as a woman wipes a tear from her cheek, deeply moved by the devastation which has been inflicted about her home.

“Last night our hearts were torn apart,” says Solingen’s mayor, Tim Kurzbach. “We in Solingen are full of horror and grief. What happened yesterday in our city has hardly let any of us sleep.”

Police in small groups can be seen in the streets; some guard the cordon, others speak to members of the public as they try to gather information about the attacker who caused all the pain.

Festival organiser Philip Müller was at the second stage when he got a call saying there was a man in the crowd stabbing people. When he arrived at the central square a few moments later, the only people left were the dead, the injured and emergency service personnel trying to help them.

“When I arrived at the front there were no people anymore,” he says. “They were gone: shocked. There was a little kind of panic… some got down under the tables.”
He adds: “No one can break this city. We have 160,000 people… let us keep together in freedom and in peace.”

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
Image:
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 weapons by the perpetrator during the attack.

Police were alerted by witnesses shortly after 9.30pm local time on Friday, to reports of several people being wounded in a central square, the Fronhof, during a community festival.

The Festival of Diversity, marking the city’s 650th anniversary, began on Friday and was supposed to continue over the weekend, with several stages in central streets offering attractions such as live music, cabaret and acrobatics.

Fatalities in attack at Solingen city festival
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Three people died in the attack while the Solingen city festival was taking place. Pic: AP

DJ and music producer Topic, who was performing at the festival, said he was on stage and asked to continue performing “to avoid mass panic” as the incident unfolded.

The event has now been cancelled.

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Churches in Solingen opened their doors to offer a space for prayer and emergency pastoral care.

German interior minister Nancy Faeser visited the city on Saturday evening and said the government would do everything possible to support people.

“We will not allow that such an awful attack divides our society,” she said, appearing alongside the minister-president of North Rhine Westphalia, Hendrik Wust.

People take part in a prayer service in memory of the victims of the knife attack. Pic: AP
Image:
A prayer service was held on Saturday in memory of knife attack victims. Pic: AP

Mr Wust described the attack as “an act of terror against the security and freedom of this country”.

But Ms Faeser, the country’s top security official, has not classified it as a terror attack.

Solingen has about 160,000 residents and is near the bigger city of Dusseldorf and Germany‘s border with the Netherlands.