Germany deports Afghans for first time since Taliban’s return to power

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Germany has deported several Afghans to their homeland for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, as it toughens its immigration policy in the wake of last Friday’s terror attack in the western city of Solingen.

The move came hours after ministers announced a package of new security measures aimed at clamping down on Islamist terrorism and irregular immigration.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement that the deportees were all convicted criminals who had no right to remain in Germany. “Germany’s security interests clearly outweigh the interest of protecting criminals and potential terrorists,” he said.

“Our security counts, the rule of law is taking action,” said Nancy Faeser, interior minister, adding that 28 men were being expelled.

Berlin had previously refrained from deporting criminals to Afghanistan and Syria because it would have involved direct negotiations with two regimes with which Germany has no diplomatic relations.

The Green party, part of Scholz’s coalition, had long warned that such deportations would be tantamount to recognising the Taliban government in Kabul. Pro-refugee groups have also said that returnees risked being tortured or executed.

Germany is still reeling from last Friday’s attack when a man fatally stabbed three people during a street festival in the city of Solingen north of Cologne and injured eight others. Police arrested a 26-year-old Syrian over the incident, for which Isis claimed responsibility.

Ministers said on Thursday that Germany would cut welfare benefits to refugees who face deportation to other EU states under the bloc’s Dublin rules and speed up the expulsion of migrants who have committed crimes.

The Dublin rules stipulate that refugees’ asylum claims must be assessed in the country in which they first arrive, not where they end up.

They failed to be applied in the case of the Syrian man suspected of the Solingen attack. Germany had planned to deport him last year to Bulgaria, through which he had first entered the EU, and which had agreed to take him back.

But the authorities did not find him at his normal abode when they came to detain him, and never returned. After six months elapsed, the deadline for his transfer to Bulgaria expired and he became Germany’s responsibility.

Ministers also said they would introduce a ban on knives in long-distance transport, in festivals and other big public events. Under the new measures, asylum can be denied if the applicant commits antisemitic crimes.

Police will also be allowed to biometrically compare photographs that are publicly available with those of suspects or people who are wanted by the authorities, a practice that up until now has been banned in Germany.

Scholz announced in June that his government would seek ways to repatriate criminal Syrians and Afghans, after a policeman died following a knife attack by a suspected Islamist extremist in the western city of Mannheim. But it has taken until now for that to be implemented.

The 28 Afghan deportees were flown in a chartered Qatar Airways plane which left Leipzig/Halle airport early on Friday morning and is due to arrive in Kabul at 12.30pm German time, according to a spokesperson for the Saxony interior ministry. He said some of them were Islamists considered capable of carrying out politically motivated attacks.