The Syrian asylum seeker suspected of killing three and injuring several others at a “festival of diversity” in Germany on Friday reportedly had a deportation order last year, but authorities failed to remove him from the country.
According to information obtained by German paper of record Die Welt, 26-year-old Issa Al H., the Syrian asylum seeker who surrendered himself to police on Saturday after the mass stabbing in Solingen, was supposed to be deported in 2023.
The suspected terrorist had a removal date scheduled to have him sent to Bulgaria, the country where he first entered the European Union, and therefore, under the Dublin regulations, the country where he should have had his asylum claims processed.
However, following his deportation order, Issa Al H. disappeared from his residence in the Western German city of Paderborn. He re-appeared several months later, but rather than removing him, he was reportedly granted “subsidiary protection” for people from countries with civil wars and transferred to a refugee centre in Solingen, where Friday’s attack took place.
While the suspect was apparently not on the radar of police for extremist leanings, the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack in Solingen, claiming that it was intended as an act of revenge against “Christians” for “Muslims in Palestine and around elsewhere.”
The alleged knifeman is also reported to have shouted out the jihadist war cry “Allahu Akbar” during Friday’s attack on the diversity festival, which saw three people killed and eight others injured, including four with life-threatening wounds. The suspected terrorist is said to have specifically targeted the necks of his victims.
The attack has led to increased pressure on the leftist government coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz to crack down on mass migration and ramp up deportations.
The leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, Friedrich Merz, called for the government to begin deportations to Syria and Afghanistan, which have been halted over safety concerns, and to stop accepting asylum seekers from the countries.
“It’s enough,” Merz wrote, saying: “After the terrorist act in Solingen, it should now be finally clear: it is not the knives that are the problem, but the people who run around with it… In the majority of cases, these are refugees, in the majority of the deeds, there were Islamist motives behind them.”
The CDU leader also called on the government to immediately revoke residence status for any alleged asylum seeker who travels back to their home country after it was revealed that many so-called refugees from Afghanistan had vacationed in their homeland despite supposedly needing asylum from the country.
However, while the centre-right party has been out of power since the end of 2021, some have still cast blame on the party given its role, under former leader Angela Merkel, for “opening the gates” to mass migration from the Middle East and Africa in 2015 and sparking the Europe Migrant Crisis. A sign placed at the memorial in Solingen sarcastically quipped, “Thank you, Angela Merkel Party Greens”.
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