Merkel insists on keeping Germany’s door open to refugees

As German chancellor defends policy, French police reveal details of second church attacker.

Police officers raid the rooms of a mosque in Hildeshein, Germany, on July 27, 2016. Chris Gossmann / EPA

BERLIN // German officials in the federal state of Bavaria have called for tighter checks on migrants entering the country – a demand that goes against German leader Angela Merkel’s open door policy towards refugees and asylum seekers.

Joachim Hermann, the interior minister of Bavaria, where three of the last four attacks by individuals claiming some affinity with ISIL took place, said background checks on asylum seekers should be more thorough and deporting those who commit crimes should be made easier.

Meanwhile in France, more details have emerged about the second man who murdered a French priest while he was conducting mass.

Speaking at a joint press conference, Bavarian justice minister Winfried Bausback said, “The threat of Salafist terrorism has unfortunately arrived in Europe, in Germany, in Bavaria.”

Two of the attacks – an axe attack near Wuerzburg in which five people were wounded, and a suicide bombing that injured 15 outside a bar in Ansbach – were the first in Germany to be claimed by ISIL. Both the perpetrators were killed.

In two other attacks – a mass shooting in Munich that claimed 10 lives, including the attacker’s, and the stabbing of a woman at a restaurant in Reutlingen – the motive is still unclear. Three of the four trackers were refugees.

The attacks have brought chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy of welcoming refugees under renewed criticism. More than 1 million came to Germany last year, though the influx has since slowed dramatically.

But Mrs Merkel on Thursday said there would be no backtracking on her policy of welcoming all comers to Germany.

The chancellor said the four assaults within a week were “shocking, oppressive and depressing” but not a sign that authorities had lost control.

“I am still convinced today that ‘we can do it’ – it is our historic duty and this is a historic challenge in times of globalisation,” she said.

She would not allow fanatics to keep her government from being guided by reason and compassion, she added.

“Despite the great unease these events inspire, fear can’t be the guide for political decisions,” she said. “It is my deep conviction that we cannot let our way of life be destroyed.”

However opposition parties and rebels from Mrs Merkel’s own conservative bloc have accused her of exposing the country to unacceptable risks.

Germany’s commissioner for immigration, refugees and integration called on mosques across the country to be more proactive when it came to preventing extremism among Muslim youths.

"We need to hold mosques more responsible when it comes to prevention among teenagers," Aydan Ozoguz told the daily Heilbronner Stimme.

On Wednesday night, police raided a mosque believed to be a “hot spot” for Islamic extremists in the northern German city of Hildesheim. The raid did not appear to be connected to the recent attacks.

In France, police formally named Abdel Malik Petitjean as the other man involved in killing a French priest. His family and friends described the 19-year-old as “perfectly normal”. After finishing high school in 2015, he worked part-time sales jobs and his CV said he liked science-fiction movies, video games, music and boxing.

Unlike his accomplice Adel Kermiche, also 19, nobody suspected Petitjean of having been radicalised and he was unknown to the police until last month when he tried to go to Syria. Petitjean, whose identity card was found at Kermiche’s home, had never committed a crime in France so his DNA and fingerprints did not appear in any records, which hampered the identification process.

He came onto the radar of French police in June after he tried to travel to Syria from Turkey, and was placed on France’s “Fiche S” of people posing a potential threat to national security.

Sources close to the investigation said Petitjean “strongly resembles” a man hunted by antiterrorism police in the days before the attack over fears he was about to carry out an act of terror.

The sources said France’s antiterrorism police unit UCLAT sent out a note four days before the attack – saying it had received “reliable” information about a person “about to carry out an attack on national territory.”

Petitjean was born to a family of Algerian origin and lived in the quiet lakeside town of Aix-les-Bains in the Alpine region of Savoie, much visited by people seeking health cures. The spa resort is 700 kilometres from the industrial Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray where Petitjean and Kermich stormed a church and took hostages on Tuesday.

He and Kermiche, also a Frenchman born to an Algerian family, slit the 86-year-old priest’s throat at the altar. Another elderly worshipper was severely injured but several other hostages escaped unharmed.

Both assailants were shot dead by police.

Djamel Tazghat, who manages the local mosque in the Aix-les-Bains suburb where Petitjean lived in social housing, said he recognised the young man in a video published by ISIL in which the two pledged allegiance to the jihadist movement.

“I liked him a lot. We never had a problem with him at the mosque. No strange observations, he was always smiling ... It’s incredible,” he said.

“All the believers are shocked because he was known for his kindness, his calm. We never had any sign of radicalisation. What was going on inside his head?”

Following the murder of the priest, French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve has announced the deployment of 23,500 police, troops and reservists to safeguard 60 major festivals, concerts and other events throughout the summer. The French government called up 12,000 police reservists following the attack in Nice in which a man drove a lorry at high speed into crowds celebrating Bastille Day, France’s national holiday, and applications to join up have soared since then. Among other safety measures, peoplea re now banned from wearing rucksacks or carrying large bags on the seafront at Cannes and many beach and seaside areas have armed police patrols.

* Associated Press