Berlin – A German court on Wednesday sentenced a 27-year-old Syrian national, Issa al-Hassan, to life imprisonment for carrying out a deadly knife attack at a street festival in the western city of Solingen last year.
The Düsseldorf regional court found al-Hassan guilty of three counts of murder, among other charges, describing the assault as a “deadly terrorist attack” marked by cruelty.
On August 23, 2024, three people were killed and several others injured during the stabbing spree at a public festival in Solingen, a city of around 170,000 east of Düsseldorf. The victims were two men, aged 56 and 67, and a 56-year-old woman. Eight others were wounded.
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The so-called Islamic State later claimed responsibility for the attack. Al-Hassan surrendered days after the incident and admitted to the stabbings during initial questioning, having been on trial since late May 2025.
This case follows a separate ruling in September 2024, when a Berlin court sentenced another Syrian man, aged 29, to three years in prison for membership in ISIS. Judges said he had performed secondary tasks for the group in Syria before arriving in Germany in 2015, where he continued contacts with ISIS members and promoted its propaganda.
