But German interior minister Nancy Faeser, the country’s top security official, has not classified it as a terror attack.
Some 24 hours after the attack, police said they made a second arrest on Saturday evening as part of a police operation at a home for refugees in Solingen. Police said they could not provide more details on the individual or its connection to the incident.
Earlier on Saturday officers arrested a 15-year-old boy in connection to the case after he was allegedly heard talking to the suspect ahead of the brutal attack.
Police have not ruled out terrorism as the motive behind the death of two men, aged 67 and 56, and a woman, aged 56. Five of the eight people wounded in the attack are in serious condition, police said at a press conference on Saturday afternoon.
Elite officers in Germany stormed a refugee shelter, with the Bild newspaper reporting that a Syrian was arrested in the raid.
The newspaper stressed that information was initial and unconfirmed but reported the asylum seeker accommodation was just 300 metres from the Fronhof, the market square which was the site of the attack.
