A German court has convicted a Syrian man of a 2024 Islamic State-inspired stabbing attack at a festival in the city of Solingen, Reuters reports.
The attack killed three people and injured 10 others. The perpetrator, Issa Al-Hassan, was sentenced to life in prison.
The attack has upended the campaign for this year's national elections, giving a boost to the far-right Alternative for Germany party and contributing to the decision of current Chancellor Friedrich Merz to make tighter immigration controls a focus of his campaign.
Born in Syria in 1998, Al-Hassan attacked the festival marking the 650th anniversary of the founding of Solingen, believing that there would be "non-believers" there, prosecutors said.
Man arrested in deadly knife attack in Germany
Three people were killed and eight others were injured
Before the attack on August 23, 2024, he had been in contact with an ISIS figure via the messaging platform Telegram and had recorded a video declaring his allegiance.
Al-Hassan charged into the crowd and stabbed people around him, aiming for the throats and upper bodies of passersby.
The man told a court-appointed counsel that he himself had to flee ISIS in 2013, during the Syrian civil war. One of hundreds of thousands displaced by the conflict, he arrived in Germany in 2022.
Al-Hassan, who confessed upon his arrest, appeared remorseful at the start of his trial in May and told the court that he "carries a heavy burden of guilt."
He later adopted a more defiant tone, saying his attack was justified by Germany's arms sales for the Israeli invasion of Gaza and that he could not bear to see people in Germany dance while Palestinian children are killed.
"I just want to go to prison and not talk about it anymore," he said during the trial.