Sentenced to life in prison, Isa al-Hassan was found guilty of killing three people and injuring eight others at the Zollingen festival in August 2024. The Islamist terrorist attack shocked Germany and triggered major changes to asylum policy.

The Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court imposed the maximum sentence on the 27-year-old Syrian who on 23 August 2024 attacked with a knife against people attending the outdoor music festival in Zollingen in North Rhine-Westphalia, causing the death of three of them. Isa al-Hassan arrived in Germany via Bulgaria in 2022 and his asylum application had been rejected and he should have been deported a year before the attack, but authorities had failed to trace him.

He was today found guilty of three counts of manslaughter, ten counts of attempted manslaughter and membership of the Islamic State terrorist group. In its verdict, the Court fully adopted the recommendation of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, while the defence lawyers had only objected to the preventive detention of the defendant. Al Hassan must also pay 360,000 euros in compensation to the victims.

The attack in Zollingen shocked the German public, with the political controversy eventually leading to the tightening of both asylum rules and security measures for open events and gatherings. At the start of the trial, the defendant confessed to his act, which he had admitted to anyway in a video in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.“I am Isa, I killed three people. Innocent people, not infidels. For this I will receive an 80-year sentence. I await death,” he said in the video, describing his act as revenge for the massacres of Muslims in “crusades” in Bosnia, Iraq and other countries, and citing dead children in Gaza and arms deliveries from Germany to Israel as motivation for his act. He insisted that “IS” had to take responsibility for the attack, which eventually happened.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office described the perpetrator in its submission as a jihadist and Islamist who had been radicalised as early as 2019. According to the expert’s assessment, Isa lacks empathy, but is fascinated by violence. During the trial he sat with his head bowed at all times and when asked about it by the judge, he replied, “I feel guilty, that’s why.”