A failed Iraqi asylum seeker has been returned to Germany under armed escort after allegedly admitting the brutal rape and murder of a German-Jewish teenage girl, government officials confirmed.
“I am delighted the suspect sought by justice is back in Germany,” said German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer in a statement released Saturday, adding he hoped Ali Bashar, 20, would now “rapidly” face trial.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, Bashar is alleged to have strangled 14-year-old Susanna Maria Feldman after raping her in the German city of Wiesbaden.
He was detained in northern Iraq on Friday following an outcry in Germany after police hunting the fugitive admitted he had left the country with his family.
The body of the girl, who had been missing since May 22, was found Wednesday buried on the outskirts of the city. Feldman’s death had shocked the nation and her alleged attacked is believed to have arrived in Germany in October 2015, at the height of the migrant surge across Europe into Germany.
Despite the absence of a formal extradition treaty between Iraq and Germany, the suspect was put on a Lufthansa flight to Germany from the Kurdish regional capital Arbil, German media reports said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has been under increasing public pressure over her unilateral decision to open Germany’s borders at the height of Europe’s refugee crisis in 2015, resulting in the arrival of more than a million asylum seekers.
Demonstrators held a minute’s silence in cities across Germany on Saturday, notably in the teenager’s hometown of Mainz.
Seehofer said Bashar’s return was but “small consolation” for the victim’s parents who he said were in his thoughts.
“For the state of our society it is important these crimes be cleared up and that the suspects be brought to justice,” he added.
Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com
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