The perpetrator of the deadly attack in Solingen is sent to a German prison after turning himself in

The investigating judge of the German Federal Court on Sunday ordered the imprisonment of the alleged perpetrator of the knife attack that left three dead last Friday in Solingen (western Germany) and which was subsequently claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).

According to a statement from the State Attorney General’s Office, the detainee, a Syrian national, is accused of murder in three cases and attempted murder in eight others, as well as belonging to a foreign terrorist organization.

According to the note, investigators assume that Issa Al H., the suspect, shares the radical Islamist ideology of IS and that for this reason he made the decision to “kill as many people as possible” from their point of view infidels.”

The prosecutor’s office said that he “repeatedly stabbed festival-goers in the back with a knife, aiming for their necks and torsos” at the Solingen municipal festival.

Search against the clock

After killing three people and leaving four others in critical condition, the suspect – who had not previously been known for his Islamist tendencies – fled amid the confusion.

This marked the beginning of a race against time by the police that was to last about 24 hours, until Al H. stopped a police patrol car and told the officers, his clothes still stained with blood, “I am the one you are looking for,” according to media reports.

After disposing of the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, from the refugee centre where he was staying, the suspected attacker is believed to have remained hidden in an inner courtyard near the scene of the attack in central Solingen.

On Saturday, police arrested two individuals – one of them a 15-year-old teenager – but neither of them turned out to be the suspect.

ISIS claims responsibility for attack

According to media reports, Al H. is originally from the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, which was under IS control for three years, from which it was liberated in 2017.

In 2022, the suspect arrived in Germany, but it was decided to deport him to Bulgaria, which was responsible for processing his asylum application as it was the country of entry into the EU, according to sources cited by German media.

However, Al H. managed to evade the authorities until the expiration of the deportation order and then obtained a temporary residence permit after being granted the right to subsidiary protection as a Syrian citizen.

The IS claimed responsibility for the Solingen attack on Saturday, saying it was carried out by “one of its soldiers” in revenge “for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.”

According to terrorism experts, this is the first attack claimed by IS on German soil since 2016, when 13 people died after a truck rammed into a Christmas market, although the authorities are still analysing the veracity of the manifesto in this case.

More deportations and ban knives

The attack has revived the debate over security measures in Germany, a week before regional elections in several eastern federal states, in which the far right is the favourite.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, a social democrat, has long been in favour of banning knives in public, a proposal that her liberal coalition partners have joined in the wake of the attack.

“We need to tighten the gun laws,” said Green Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Sunday, noting that Islamist terrorism “endangers our way of life.”

“The problem is not the knives, but the people who carry them around,” said the head of the Christian Democratic opposition, Friedrich Merz, who called for a complete halt to the reception of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.

On the other hand, Saskia Esken, co-leader of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), spoke out on Sunday in favour of beginning to deport convicted criminals and Islamist extremists to Syria and Afghanistan, a measure that is difficult to implement legally and has long been demanded by the conservative opposition.