A Syrian asylum seeker who is recognised as a terrorist threat due to his Islamic State sympathies costs German taxpayers 4,000 euros a day to monitor but has never been placed on trial.
In all, Ayman N. has cost the German taxpayer around five million euros in the three years he has been under strict observation by German security services, and even has four plainclothes police officers escort him when he goes to the shop to buy food.
Police have spent around 95,000 hours of work on observing and escorting the Syrian teen at a rate of 52 euros per hour for each police officer, according to information provided to German tabloid Bild by the Saxony-Anhalt Interior Ministry.
The Syrian is said to have come to Germany in 2015 during the height of the migrant crisis and became radicalised in 2017 when he began contacting members of the Islamic State terror group over the Internet.
“He made it clear that he wanted to carry out an attack against the lives of many people living in Germany,” a justice official told the paper.
While Ayman N. was initially supposed to stand trial for preparing a terrorist attack in 2017, a court suspended the proceedings claiming further investigations needed to be carried out.
Since then, the Syrian has been under strict observation, with four officers taking turns on eight-hour shifts 24 hours a day with no end in sight.
Several other Islamic State members or sympathisers have been found roaming free in Germany, including a member of the terror group who was spotted by a Yazidi woman he had previously kept as a slave.
The young woman ended up fleeing Germany to Iraq after running into the man, who had come to Europe posing as a refugee, in a local supermarket in the town of Schwäbisch Gmünd.
Earlier this year, an Islamic State commander, who also fled to Germany during the migrant crisis, was charged by prosecutors in Frankfurt for violating the country’s terror laws.
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