A migrant accused of a stabbing spree which saw two killed in Germany should have already been deported by authorities, a minister in the country has admitted.
Nancy Faeser, Germany’s Antifa-linked Interior Minister, has admitted that the migrant thought to be behind a mass stabbing on a train in January likely should not have been in the country at all at the time of the attack, with authorities having previously had the opportunity to deport him before the attack took place.
Described in local media as Ibrahim A., the migrant is thought to have stabbed five people on the train from Hamburg and Kiel, killing two teenagers aged 17 and 19.
According to a report by Die Welt, Faeser has now said that the man thought to be behind the attack could likely have been deported by law enforcement in Germany, with it now being known that the accused migrant has numerous other convictions already.
Faeser explains that although Ibrahim was likely eligible for deportation while in police custody, there was “misinformation” amongst officers that the migrant could not be removed from the country because he was seemingly stateless.
However, the minister went on to say that there was substantial reason to believe that the migrant was originally from Palestine, and so was likely eligible for removal under an agreement between Germany and the authorities in Israel and Palestine.
It is still reportedly “not clear” how the migrant, who Die Welt describes as being “known to the police” was able to move about Germany freely despite his numerous previous convictions.
Rumblings that the man thought to be behind the mass stabbing likely should not have been in the country in the first place is only the latest controversy following on from the attack.
Merely a day after the attack, accusations started flying that one state-linked outlet in Germany was attempting to cover up the nature of the incident, with the broadcaster refraining from including reference to the fact that the attacker was thought to be a foreign migrant in their report.
The broadcaster later came out and said that refusing to disclose that detail to the public was somehow “not censorship, but preservation of democracy”, with the outlet saying that “the origin of the perpetrator is not relevant to the report”.
It also alleged that describing the prime suspect of the killings as being a migrant could lead “to discriminatory generalizations or misinterpretations”, and that while correct reporting was important, so too was “ridding our pages of racism and xenophobia”.
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