Family about the criminal – “He was a happy person”

Solingen is in mourning after a fatal knife attack by a 26-year-old Syrian. The perpetrator’s family are now breaking their silence – and talking about a man they knew differently.

Solingen is still in shock more than a week after the suspected Islamist attack with three dead and eight people, some seriously injured. On August 23rd, Issa al-Hassan, 26 years old from Syria, attacked several people with a knife at the city festival in Solingen. Al-Hassan, who came to Germany as a refugee through Bulgaria, is in custody.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office is investigating him, among other things, for murder and on suspicion of membership in the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS). The man was supposed to be deported to Bulgaria in 2023, but that failed.

Now al-Hassan’s father and sister, who live in the Syrian capital, Damascus, are speaking out for the first time. “I was shocked,” Chalaf al-Hassan told Spiegel. “I pray it was a misunderstanding. We were running away from all these problems, the violence. I believe our son could not do something like that.” The father of the alleged criminal continued that he “raised him with my own hands.” “Maybe he was under the influence of something or someone. When he realizes what happened, he will say he never wanted to do something like that.”

Video | IS releases alleged confession video

Quelle: t-online

The last time the family had contact with al-Hassan was about ten days ago, according to Fatima, his sister. When asked by “Spiegel” if there was anything unusual about al-Hassan, she replied: “No, to be honest, he was usually, calling us, laughing and joking.” In general, al-Hassan was a “cheerful person,” “loved to laugh and joke, sociable, and everyone who met him liked him. He was very popular, like all his brothers,” Fatima said. al-Hassan about her brother.

However, he had no friends in Germany. “He always said that he never went out, that he didn’t know anyone,” she said, and that he was doing well and was happy in Germany. Before al-Hassan traveled to Bulgaria and set foot on EU soil for the first time, he stayed in Turkey. Since he was threatened with deportation to Syria and military service there, he traveled to Germany via Bulgaria, said al-Hassan’s sister.

The plan for his stay was “for him to settle down, get married and secure his future,” said Fatima al-Hassan. “We thought that Germany was a good place, far away, and that no people would be deported from there.”

However, according to his sister, al-Hassan is not a particularly religious person. “When he was still here, we always told him to get up and pray. He said, OK – but he didn’t. He prayed once a day and he didn’t fast,” said Fatima al-Hassan. “He always said: I can’t bear to fast. I can’t fast for the whole month of Ramadan; I get weak and dizzy.”

When asked what Chalaf al-Hassan would say to his son, he replied: “Why did you do that, my son?”