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Iraqi faces German court in ‘Susanna’ rape-murder case
BERLIN, March 12, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – An Iraqi man goes on trial in Germany
Tuesday accused of the rape and murder of a teenage girl that inflamed anti-
immigrant tensions amid a mass influx of asylum seekers.
The accused, Ali Bashar, 22, left Germany for northern Iraq shortly after
the May 2018 crime but was brought back in a mission joined personally by
federal police chief Dieter Romann.
Bashar’s trial for the rape-murder of 14-year-old schoolgirl Susanna Maria
Feldman will start under tight security at 0830 GMT in the city of Wiesbaden.
To Germany’s far right, the alleged killer, who is also accused of raping
an 11-year-old girl in a separate case, has become a symbol of the threat
allegedly posed by the wave of newcomers.
Before the trial, the anti-Islam Alternative for Germany (AfD) party again
blamed Chancellor Angela Merkel and her grand coalition or “GroKo” government
for Susanna’s death.
“The problem isn’t ‘the right’ but the knife-man immigration caused by the
GroKo that has caused ever more bloody crimes,” the party wrote in a Facebook
post.
The AfD became the biggest opposition party when it entered parliament in
late 2017, riding a wave of public anger over sexual assaults and other
violent crimes committed by some recent migrants.
In another case last year, the fatal stabbing of a German man in the
eastern city of Chemnitz, allegedly by immigrants, sparked outbursts of mob
violence in which far-right extremists hunted people of foreign appearance
through the streets.
– Shallow grave –
Bashar, along with his parents and five siblings, first arrived in Germany
in 2015, the year that saw the peak of the migrant influx which would bring
more than one million people to Europe’s top economy.
His request for asylum was rejected in December 2016, but — in a case
critics label as symptomatic of an overwhelmed and dysfunctional system — he
obtained a temporary residence permit pending his appeal.
In May last year, Bashar allegedly beat, raped and strangled Susanna to
death in a wooded area near his refugee shelter in Wiesbaden.
Her body was then buried in a shallow grave covered with leaves, twigs and
soil.
When her body was found two weeks later, Bashar and his family had left
Germany for Arbil, northern Iraq.
However following a public outcry, he was arrested by Kurdish security
forces and German federal police hauled Bashar back from Iraq.
Despite the absence of a formal extradition treaty between Iraq and
Germany, Bashar was put on a flight to Germany, with pictures of him
disembarking under heavy police guard making front pages.
Bashar also faces charges for a park robbery in which he allegedly beat,
strangled and threatened a man with a knife to steal his watch, bag, phone
and bank card.
He faces a separate trial from March 19, accused of having twice raped an
11-year-old girl — once in April 2018 after locking her in his room, and
again near a supermarket carpark the following month.
Prosecutors have also laid charges against an Afghan youth who was living
in the same refugee shelter, Mansoor Q., who was believed to be aged at least
14 at the time, for also raping the 11-year-old girl.
And prosecutors have said Bashar’s younger brother — who is believed to be
in Iraq, according to media reports — also took part in a violent sexual
assault against the younger girl.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1120 hrs