A failed asylum seeker from Iraq has admitted strangling to death a 14-year-old girl in Germany last year but denied raping her.
“My vision went black and then it happened," said Ali Bashar, now 22. “I don't know how it could have happened,” he told the court in reference to the death in the city of Wiesbaden in May 2018.
He fled to Iraqi Kurdistan after allegedly murdering the 14-year-old but was arrested in and sent back to Germany. The trial is expected to last until May.
The case reignited a fiery debate in Germany over migration and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door migration policy.
It is claimed he murdered the 14-year-old girl near to his refugee shelter in a wooded area then buried her in a shallow grave covered with twigs, leaves and soil.
Mr Bashar reportedly arrived in Germany in October 2015 with his parents and five siblings amid a migrant influx that saw more than one million people arrive in the country. He is separately accused of raping a 11-year-old girl.
The incidents were seized upon by the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), the nationalist, anti-migrant party that has made huge strides in the recent years on the back of impressive election results.
"The problem isn't 'the right' but the knife-man immigration caused by the (Mrs Merkel’s coalition government) that has caused ever more bloody crimes," AfD said on Facebook.
Mr Bashar first came onto the police’s radar after he was connected to a robbery, possession of a knife and assault. His asylum application was rejected in 2015 but he was allowed a temporary residence permit as he appealed the decision.
In March 2018 an Afghan asylum seeker was jailed for life after he murdered and raped a 19-year-old German girl in October 2016. He had claimed to be 17 but did not have any supporting documents and may have been as old as 32.
