German police arrest man suspected of knife rampage

As Isis claim responsibility for stabbing spree at city festival

- ALEX CROFT

Police arrested a man last night suspected of carrying out a knife attack at a festival in Germany that has left three people dead and eight injured.

Specialist policing units had been searching for a man after a 56-year-old woman and two men, aged 56 and 67, died following the assault on Friday night.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister Herbert Reul told the ARD broadcaster that the man was affiliated with a home for refugees that had been searched earlier in the day.

The man cut the throats of his victims during the attack in the western German city of Solingen, which was celebrating the Festival of Diversity to mark the city’s 650th anniversary.

Isis claimed responsibility for the attack yesterday evening, saying the attacker was a “soldier of the Islamic State”, but the group provided no immediate evidence to support the claim.

A special policing unit raided a home for asylum seekers where another person was arrested as part of the investigation but he is not believed to be the attacker.