Germany to Resume Deportation of Criminal Immigrants to Afghanistan and Syria Following Police Officer's Murder

This morning, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz addressed the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, with a national security statement. One of the issues was the recent death of a police officer from a stabbing by a refugee from Afghanistan. The chancellor promised to deport migrants who commit crimes to countries that were previously considered dangerous, DW reports.

Scholz called it a hateful ideology: "radical Islam... terrorism... wants to deprive us of our freedoms. Without these freedoms, we have no democracy". 

Addressing the family, friends and, above all, colleagues of the fallen officer, Scholz said: "We support you. We support our police." 

He said that the laws against such violence should be stricter and that those who kill police officers should be punished with the utmost severity.  

The German Chancellor also stressed the need to increase the number of police and promised to refuse to issue German passports to known Islamists or anti-Semites, vowing to have ‘zero tolerance’ for the deportation of such individuals.

The day before, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said she was doing ‘everything possible’ to resume deportations of criminals to Afghanistan and Syria after a migrant fatally stabbed a police officer in Mannheim.

Germany stopped repatriating migrants to Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power in 2021, as it does not deport people to countries where they face death.

But after an Afghan refugee was charged with the fatal stabbing of a police officer in Mannheim last Friday, the authorities are now reconsidering this policy.

‘It is clear to me that people who pose a potential threat to German security should be deported quickly,’ Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters.

"I am also adamant that Germany's security interests clearly outweigh those of the victims. That is why we are doing everything we can to find ways to deport criminals and dangerous people to both Syria and Afghanistan," she added.