A Syrian man has confessed to carrying out a knife attack last August in the German town of Solingen, which resulted in the deaths of three people.

“I have committed a serious crime and am ready to accept the court’s decision,” Issa al H said in a statement delivered by his defense lawyers at the beginning of his trial in Düsseldorf, a city in western Germany.

Issa al H, whose full surname remains undisclosed due to German privacy laws, faces accusations of membership in the Islamic State jihadist group and of pledging allegiance to IS in videos recorded shortly before the attack.

The stabbing incident happened during a three-day festival in Solingen celebrating the town’s 650th anniversary and occurred just days before important regional elections.

Over the course of a year, several German cities experienced a series of deadly attacks, starting with an incident in Mannheim in May 2024, when an Afghan man stabbed a police officer during a rally.

Most perpetrators were reported to have migrant backgrounds, and these attacks significantly influenced the national conversation ahead of Germany’s federal elections in February.

While most mainstream parties adopted stricter rhetoric on migration, the far-right AfD party was perceived as the main beneficiary of the tense atmosphere, finishing second with nearly 21% of the vote. Since then, they have further closed the gap with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party.

The suspect in the Solingen knife attack on August 23 had arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2022. However, since he had previously registered for asylum in Bulgaria, authorities ordered his deportation to that country.

By the time German officials attempted to deport him in 2023, he had vanished.

On Tuesday, Issa al H appeared in the high-security courtroom in Düsseldorf wearing a blue T-shirt, keeping his head bowed for most of the time he stood in the defendant’s dock.

He faces charges including three counts of murder, ten counts of attempted murder, and additional charges of serious bodily harm.

Prosecutors claim he contacted IS members on jihadist social media forums before the attack and received assistance in planning the assault and selecting his weapon.

In his statement read aloud by his lawyers, Issa al H said, “I killed innocents, not infidels.”

One of the victims injured during the Solingen attack attended court on Tuesday, her arm in a sling, a reminder of the injuries inflicted that day.

Athanasios Antonakis, the attorney representing a mother and daughter wounded in the attack, told public broadcaster WDR, “My clients hope this trial will aid their recovery process.”