In 2019, an Afghan raped a girl (14) in Illerkirchberg. After his release from prison, he lives again in the place where he committed the crime and, according to the court, could be deported, but nothing happens. Instead, the rejected asylum seeker complains of hostility.
It was a criminal case that caused anger and horror far beyond the borders of Baden-Württemberg:
On October 31, 2019, five young asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq lured a 14-year-old girl into the Illerkirchberg asylum center and drugged the girl with knockout drops. The perpetrators, aged between 15 and 27, then took turns raping their victim.
In March 2021, the Ulm Regional Court found the defendants guilty and imposed prison sentences for rape, grievous bodily harm, aiding and abetting rape and supplying narcotics to minors.
A 31-year-old man from Afghanistan was sentenced to more than two years in prison. After serving his sentence and a short period of deportation detention, he was released. Since then, a heated debate has raged about the ex-prisoner, and not only in Illerkirchberg, where he returned after his prison sentence.
It is about alleged hostility by citizens of the city and a deportation that was permitted by the court but was not enforced. The man’s lawyer, Christoph Käss from Ulm, told FOCUS online this Friday:
“My client is not allowed to work, he is obliged to live in the town where everyone knows him. He is treated with hostility everywhere. When people see him there, they call him a criminal, spit at his feet and tell him to finally get out of Germany.” He is portrayed as a “devil in human form.”
Christoph Käss continued: “Due to a residency requirement, he is not allowed to leave the Alb-Donau district. The authorities have prohibited his attempts to leave. And so he vegetates, lives in a shack and doesn’t know what to do. That leaves its mark.”
According to the lawyer, his client is “now traumatized because he no longer has a chance of survival in Illerkirchberg.” Nevertheless, he wants to stay in Germany. “His girlfriend will have a child with him in the fall.”
He has refused a state cash bonus to voluntarily return to Afghanistan; the rejected asylum seeker is currently living on “benefits in kind, a little pocket money and a payment card”.
The lawyer stresses: “He accepts his sentence and he has served his sentence.” Society has to accept that. His client, who has not yet relapsed, says: “People have to realize at some point that they can’t get rid of me.”
The Sigmaringen Administrative Court has already ruled that the man can be deported from a legal perspective. The 31-year-old was therefore unable to convincingly demonstrate in court that he has no social network in his home country that would support him in making a new start.
He entered Germany in November 2015. In 2017, his asylum application was rejected and since then he has been considered “tolerated”.
Lawyer Käss told FOCUS online: “In practice, deportation is currently not possible. Because for that you need a country that is willing to accept them. However, as far as I know, there are no negotiations between Germany and the Taliban in this regard.”
However, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) recently spoke out in favor of making it possible to deport serious criminals to Afghanistan and Syria again.
The reason for the statement was the knife attack by a 25-year-old Afghan in Mannheim, in which a police officer was killed. The Federal Ministry of the Interior is working on the practical implementation and is already in talks with Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, said Scholz.
Not only in Illerkirchberg will people be watching with great excitement to see whether the Chancellor’s words will finally be followed by actions.
Mayor Markus Häußler has already spoken out unequivocally in favour of a rapid repatriation of the released offender – “because regulated immigration includes consistently and quickly deporting people who have committed serious crimes or who have no prospect of a right of residence to their countries of origin”.
