He is believed to be the 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker who stabbed several people on a train the previous day in Wurzburg before being killed by police.
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The Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) TV network said sources close to the German security services now thinks that Riyad might have pretended to be Afghan on arrival in Germany in 2015 in order to have a better chance at securing asylum.
The interior minister also indicated the teenager may be from Pakistan, not Afghanistan as authorities initially said Tuesday.
Cops later found an ISIS-flag in his house – linking him to the death cult – also known as Daesh.
The name he used in the video, “Mohammed Riyadh”, does not match the name under which he registered in Germany, Riaz Kahn, the station added.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack and posted a video in which the teen waved a knife and referred to himself as a “soldier of the Islamic State”.
Locals described him as “calm and even-keeled” and a “devout Muslim” who “did not appear to be radical or a fanatic”.
Police, however, said he wrote in the letter that the world’s Muslims “must defend themselves”.
Investigator Lothar Koehler said the teenager’s motivation appeared to be Islamic extremism based upon a passage, found among notes in his apartment, which read: “Pray for me that I can take revenge on these infidels and pray for me that I will go to heaven”.
Prosecutors said he shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) three times as he made his way through the carriage.
Some 14 to 25 people were classified as “in shock” and treated at the scene, according to Gross.
The injured Hongkongers – an unnamed married couple, their 26-year-old daughter Tracy Yau Hiu-tung and her 31-year-old boyfriend Edmund Au Yeung – were attacked by the youngster on the train on Monday night. One man died as a result of the attack, and four others were injured, but investigators determined that the assailant in that instance was mentally disturbed and had no real connections with the extremist group.
This incident may aggravate concerns over the more than 1 million asylum seekers Germany let in past year.
The two men in the group sustained severe head, neck, abdominal and hand injuries after trying to protect the others from the attacker.
Five people were wounded in the attack near Wuerzburg, including four members of a Hong Kong family, and two of the wounded remain in critical condition.
Mr Herrmann said initial information was that the suspect had lived in the Wuerzburg area for some time, initially at a refugee facility in the town of Ochsenfurt and more recently with a foster family. The 17-year-old son travelling with them was not hurt, it said.
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In Hong Kong, chief imam for the city Muhammad Arshad said the attacker had defamed Islam and that the Islamic community in the city was praying for the injured.
