The extremist group "Islamic State" published a video showing the suspect in the knife attack in the western German city of Solingen, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
In the one-minute clip, a masked young man holds a long knife in front of the camera. Pledges allegiance in Arabic to the leader of the "Islamic State", calling him the "emir".
Yesterday "Islamic State" claimed responsibility for the attack in which three people were killed and eight were seriously injured.
The authenticity of the video cannot be confirmed, nor whether the man shown in it is indeed the suspect who was arrested by German authorities.
The twenty-six-year-old Syrian shares the ideology of the terrorist organization, which he joined sometime before August 23, the prosecutor's office said in a statement. An unsuccessful attempt was made to deport him in 2023 after he was denied asylum.
The attack took place on Friday evening in a square in the center of the city, where a festival was being held to mark the 650th anniversary of its founding.
Syrian citizen Issa al-H is charged with murder and attempted murder, and the warrant for his arrest mentions "serious suspicions of membership in a terrorist group abroad", the federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe said. >
After a day on the run, the 26-year-old surrendered to authorities on Saturday night and police said he claimed responsibility for the attack that killed three people and injured eight at a city festival in the western city on Friday night.
"Islamic State" claimed responsibility for the attack and said the attacker acted to "take revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere else," the jihadist group said in a statement issued through its Amaq propaganda arm.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz will leave for Solingen this morning. There are bouquets of flowers, candles and messages on the streets near the scene of the attack.
According to several German media reports, the Syrian suspect, who arrived in the country at the end of December 2022, was subject to a deportation order in Bulgaria, the first EU country where he was registered and where he was supposed to applied for asylum under EU rules.
According to German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, he was not on the lists of Islamic extremists considered dangerous.
Two men, aged 56 and 67, and a 56-year-old woman were stabbed on Friday evening and eight people were injured, four of them seriously. According to the police, the attacker attacked his victims "in the neck area".
Late on Saturday, German Interior Minister Nancy Pfizer called on the country to “remain united”. However, the political debate soon heated up, a week before key regional elections in the east of the country, where the far-right party "Alternative for Germany" is significantly ahead of the ruling parties in public opinion polls, notes AFP.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the perpetrator should be punished to the full extent of the law. "The attack in Solingen is a terrible event that shocked me greatly. An attacker killed several people in a particularly brutal way. I just spoke with the mayor of Solingen, Tim Kurzbach. We grieve for the victims and stand by their families," Chancellor Scholz said on the X social network.
"The heinous act in Solingen shocked me and our country. We mourn the dead and worry about the wounded. I wish them strength and a speedy recovery from the bottom of my heart," German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in turn.
The leader of Germany's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) called for an immediate suspension of the admission of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan in response to the attack, DPA reported.
In his statement released yesterday, Friedrich Merz called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to take swift and decisive action to prevent further terrorist attacks in Germany. "The problem isn't the knives, it's the people walking around with them," Mertz said. "In the majority of cases, these are refugees, and in most cases Islamist motives are behind the crimes," he added.
Mertz outlined several measures he felt were necessary, including resuming deportations to Syria and Afghanistan, even though Germany does not currently have diplomatic relations with those countries. He also called for tighter border controls, permanent deportations and indefinite detention of those who must leave the country. In addition, Merz demanded an end to the facilitated naturalizations introduced by the German government, including allowing dual citizenship.
In response to the attack, the deputy chairman of the parliamentary group of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), Konstantin Kule, also called for a stricter asylum policy. "As far as we can judge at this stage, the perpetrator should have been deported from Germany a long time ago after his asylum application was rejected," Kuhle told the "Reinische Post". "After Solingen, no stone can be left unturned between the federal government and the governments of the individual provinces on this matter.
"How many more times will we fall victim to Islamist terrorism before a deportation program (of foreigners) is introduced?" asked rhetorically in "X" "Alternative for Germany".
On September 1, important regional elections will be held in two eastern German states - Saxony and Thuringia. On September 22, there will be elections in Brandenburg.
These elections are expected to have a significant impact on the wider political landscape in Germany ahead of next year's federal elections, DPA notes.
The latest public opinion polls show that these provinces have become strongholds not only for the AzG, but also for the newly formed left-wing Union "Sahra Wagenknecht".
Both AzG and Union "Sahra Wagenknecht" are characterized by Eurosceptic and anti-immigration positions.
The parties in the government coalition - Chancellor Scholz's Social Democrats, "Union 90/Greens" and the liberal SDP - are in a weak position in the three regions of the former GDR, which renew their parliaments in September, notes AFP.