German court sentences Iraqi to life imprisonment for rape and murder of teenager

WIESBADEN (Reuters) – An Iraqi immigrant was sentenced to life in prison in Germany on Wednesday for raping and killing a 14-year-old girl, a case seized upon by the far right to draw a controversial link between the crime and the record influx of migrants in 2015.

The ruling ended a case that had shocked Germany and sparked debate over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to accept nearly a million asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa, and accused the far right of racism for exaggerating the link between crime and foreigners.

Ali Bashar, 22, arrived in Germany at the height of the crisis in 2015 and was known to police for violent behaviour before he raped and murdered Susanna Feldman. German authorities had rejected his asylum application.

Prosecutors said he returned to Iraq after strangling the teenager in May 2018 and was arrested by Iraqi authorities a month later and extradited to Germany.

The ruling by the court in Wiesbaden, western Germany, on Wednesday means that Bashar must serve a prison sentence of at least 15 years, after which he could apply for parole.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party used this high-profile case to support its claim that the influx of record numbers of migrants had led to an increase in crime.

Germany’s mainstream parties accuse the anti-immigrant AfD of racism for focusing on migrant crime while ignoring police statistics that show a decline in crime among both Germans and foreigners.

The AfD, which entered the German Bundestag in the 2017 election with the support of opponents of Merkel’s liberal immigration policy, denied harboring racist views.

(Reporting by Hakan Erdem; Text by Joseph Nasr; Editing by Mark Heinrich)