SOLINGEN  –  A Syrian man has turned himself in and confessed to stabbing three people to death and wounding eight others at a festival in the western German city of Solingen last Friday, police said. The investigation is looking into whether the 26-year-old suspect had any connection to a “terrorist organization,” a spokesperson at Germany’s top prosecutor’s office told CNN. The suspect will appear before a judge in Karlsruhe on Sunday.

It comes after ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq news service. However, it offered no evidence to back up its claim. The suspect was detained at a refugee shelter following a major manhunt which saw authorities establish “extensive search measures” throughout the German state of North Rhine Westphalia and deploy special forces. Police had earlier arrested a 15-year-old boy in connection with the incident, but said he was not the alleged attacker.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister Herbert Reul told German public broadcaster ARD: “We have just recently arrested the real suspect. And now he’s being questioned and everything else is being clarified and then we can also say: Are we right? Do we have enough evidence? I can only tell you that it’s now more than just an assumption.”

During the manhunt, Solingen residents had been warned to exercise caution and be on alert while the perpetrator remained on the run. For hours after the attack, authorities had struggled to identify the attacker. Those killed have been revealed as two men aged 67 and 56, and a woman aged 56. Eight others were injured, including four with life-threatening injuries.

A police spokesman, Thorsten Fleiß, said the attacker specifically targeted the necks of his victims. “After evaluating the initial images, we assume that it was a very targeted attack on the neck,” he said during a press conference. Several people were stabbed, apparently at random, in the attack at a central square in the city of Solingen last Friday evening, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of Düsseldorf, police said. (CNN)…[+]