During a visit to the scene of a deadly knife attack that left three people dead, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to implement stricter knife laws and ramp up the deportation of rejected asylum seekers.
Speaking after laying a white rose at a makeshift memorial in Solingen on Monday, Scholz expressed his anger over the attack, which also left eight people wounded. “I am furious and angry,” Scholz said of the incident, which took place at a festival celebrating the city’s 650th anniversary.
The suspect, a 26-year-old whose asylum application had been rejected, surrendered to police on Saturday evening, a day after the attack. According to German media reports, the suspect was supposed to be deported to Bulgaria last year, where he first entered the European Union, but evaded authorities for some time.
“We must do everything to ensure that such things never happen in our country, if possible,” Scholz was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. He emphasized the need for tougher knife laws, adding, “This should and will happen very quickly.”
Earlier this month, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser proposed reducing the maximum allowable blade length for knives carried in public from 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) to 6 centimeters (nearly 2.4 inches).
Scholz noted that deportations had increased by 30 percent this year, but he pledged to explore further measures to raise these figures. “We will look very closely at how we can contribute to raising these figures even further,” he said.
The issue of deportations has been a contentious topic in Germany, particularly following a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant in Mannheim in late May, which left one police officer dead and four others injured. In response, Scholz vowed to resume deportations of criminals to Afghanistan and Syria, despite Germany’s closure of its embassy and diplomatic mission in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021. Scholz has stressed that his government is working on solutions to enable the deportation of convicted Afghans to neighboring countries.
