BERLIN: A failed Iraqi asylum seeker suspected of raping and murdering a teenage girl in Germany was arrested in Iraq overnight, German authorities said Friday, after his escape sparked outrage and raised questions over immigration and police failings.
Ali Bashar, 20, who is believed to have strangled 14-year-old Susanna Maria Feldman after sexually assaulting her, was “arrested by Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq at the request of German federal police,” said German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.
The arrest came after an outcry in Germany as police hunting the fugitive admitted that Bashar had fled with his family.
They managed to fly out of Duesseldorf airport even though the names on their identity documents did not match those on their airline tickets, said police, adding that their identity was only checked against the photos on the papers.
Bashar also turned out to have chalked up a long police record over less than three years in Germany and should have been expelled months ago.
The case puts renewed pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government over the decision to open Germany’s borders at the height of Europe’s refugee crisis in 2015, which led to the arrival of more than a million asylum seekers over two years.