Tighter knife laws and increased deportations of rejected asylum seekers were two pledges German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reiterated in a tough line on Monday as he visited the scene of a knife attack in which a suspected Syrian-born Islamist terrorist killed three people.
“Infuriated and outraged,” Scholz said, promising action after the deadly attack, which also left eight people wounded by a man whose asylum application had been rejected, after joining local officials to lay white flowers at a makeshift memorial in the western city of Solingen.
The chancellor repeated similar threats and a vow that “something must be done” after a similar mass stabbing attack by an Afghan migrant in the regional centre of Mannheim earlier this year.
Second right-wing activist stabbed in German city of Mannheim in four dayshttps://t.co/NaR4JYfe2W
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 5, 2024
A Syrian asylum seeker suspected of killing three people and wounding several others at a “diversity festival” in Germany on Friday was issued a deportation order last year, but authorities failed to deport him, Breitbart News reported.
“We must do everything we can to ensure, if possible, that something like this never happens again in our country,” Scholz said of the attack. He predicted tougher laws regarding knives in particular, saying, “This should and will be done immediately.”
Deputy Prime Minister Robert Habeck of the Green Party It is called He called for tougher knife laws, saying, “We need to increase the number of weapons-free zones and tighten weapons regulations.”
“There is no need to carry stabbing and slashing weapons in public places in Germany,” the Green politician said. “We are not living in the Middle Ages anymore.”
Germany mass stabbing suspect ordered to leave country but not deported, reports sayhttps://t.co/cPhspj46nh
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 25, 2024
Friedrich Merz, leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), criticised Scholz, saying the problem was not the knives but the people who were allowed into the country.
“Enough is enough,” Merz wrote, adding: “After the terrorist attack in Solingen it should finally have become clear: the problem is not the knives, but the people carrying them. In most cases these were refugees and there were Islamist motives behind most of the acts.”
He also called on the government to begin forced returns to Syria and Afghanistan, which have been suspended due to security concerns, and to stop accepting asylum seekers from those countries.
The suspect, who is currently in custody, turned himself in to police on Saturday evening, a day after the attack at a festival marking the city’s 650th anniversary.
People lay flowers near the scene of Friday’s attack that killed three people and injured eight in Solingen, Germany, on Aug. 26, 2024. Issa al-H., a 26-year-old Syrian national who had applied for asylum in Germany and was facing deportation, has been detained and claims to be the knife-wielding assailant. Meanwhile, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for planning the deadly attack. (Sacha Scheuermann/Getty Images)
Federal prosecutors said Sunday that the gunman shared Islamic State’s radical terrorist ideology but it was unclear when he joined the group, and that his beliefs led him to stab his victim multiple times in the back of the neck and upper body.
According to German media reports, the 26-year-old had his asylum request rejected and was due to be deported to Bulgaria last year, where he entered the European Union for the first time, but was not deported because he disappeared for some time. Citation From the Associated Press.
Following a knife attack by an Afghan migrant in Mannheim at the end of May that left one police officer dead and four injured, Chancellor Scholz vowed that Germany would resume deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria.
Germany currently does not carry out deportations to these countries.
