A SYRIAN man was ordered on Sunday to be held on suspicion of murder and membership in a terrorist organisation in connection with the Solingen knife attack that left three dead and eight wounded at a festival.

A judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe ordered Issa Al H held pending further investigation after federal prosecutors said that he shared the radical ideology of the Islamic State extremist group, and was acting on those beliefs when he stabbed his victims repeatedly from behind in the head and upper body.

The ruling came after the suspect turned himself in, saying that he was responsible for the attack, police said.

He is also suspected of attempted murder and serious bodily injury, prosecutors said. His last name was not released in line with German privacy rules.

He “shares the ideology of the foreign terrorist organisation Islamic State” and on the basis of his “radical Islamic convictions” decided “to kill the largest possible number of those he considers unbelievers” at the festival, the Office of the Federal Prosecutor said in a statement.

The suspect is a Syrian citizen who had applied for asylum in Germany, police confirmed to reporters. The dpa news agency reported that his asylum claim had been denied and that he was to have been deported last year.