DUESSELDORF: A German court has convicted Syrian citizen Issa Al Hasan for carrying out an Islamic State-inspired stabbing attack at a festival in Solingen during 2024.
The attack resulted in three fatalities and left ten other individuals injured.
Prosecutors stated that Al Hasan targeted the festival commemorating Solingen’s 650th anniversary because he believed “unbelievers” would be present.
Before the August 23 attack, he communicated with an IS handler through Telegram and recorded a video declaring his allegiance.
Investigators confirmed that Al Hasan entered the crowd and stabbed wildly at bystanders’ throats and upper bodies.
He informed a court-appointed adviser that he had fled IS himself during the Syrian civil war in 2013.
Al Hasan arrived in Germany in 2022 as one of hundreds of thousands displaced by the conflict.
He confessed to authorities upon arrest and initially appeared contrite at his trial’s start in May.
Al Hasan later adopted a more defiant stance, justifying his attack by citing Germany’s weapons sales for Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
He told the court he could not bear seeing people in Germany dance while Palestinian children were killed.
The local public broadcaster WDR reported his final statement to the judge: “I just want to go to prison and talk about it no longer.”
The attack significantly impacted Germany’s national election campaign by boosting the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
It also influenced now-Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s decision to emphasise migration controls during his campaign.
The court sentenced Al Hasan to life imprisonment for his crimes. – Reuters
