On Monday morning, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) expressed his sadness over the three fatalities of the knife attack in Solingen. He and other politicians – including North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) – each laid a white rose at the improvised memorial site in Solingen’s city center. Afterwards, Scholz once again announced consequences – as he did after the knife murder of a police officer in Mannheim at the beginning of June.
In Solingen, Scholz promised a rapid tightening of gun laws. Deportations must be further accelerated “if necessary with legal regulations,” said Scholz. At the same time, deportations must also be carried out “consistently.”
In the case of Issa al-H., the suspected Solingen attacker, this was obviously not the case. As reported, the Syrian should have been deported to Bulgaria in June 2023 – the country through which he entered the EU. Because the German authorities did not find the 26-year-old in his refugee accommodation in Paderborn on the day of the planned deportation, the transfer to Bulgaria did not take place.
No search for Issa al-H.
On Monday, there was increasing evidence that the German authorities had not really been looking for Issa al-H. The Syrian was only absent from the accommodation on the day of the deportation, several German media reported. Before and after that, he had been seen in Paderborn, as the Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Herbert Reul (CDU), confirmed.
The responsible immigration authorities in Bielefeld also did not put Issa al-H. out for arrest because he was said to have been inconspicuous and there were not enough places available for deportation, reports “Spiegel”. If Issa al-H. had officially been considered a “fugitive”, the deadline for his transfer to Bulgaria would have been extended from six to 18 months.
Photo gallery: Solingen mourns after attack on city festival
(Photo: INA FASSBENDER (AFP)) Bild 1/13
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As it was, the deadline expired at the end of 2023. According to “Bild”, Issa al-H. reported back to the authorities four days after the deadline expired – and was granted “subsidiary protection”. This is a status for refugees who cannot prove direct personal or political persecution in their home country, but who cannot be deported there due to danger to life or limb (e.g. due to war). Issa al-H. was transferred to Solingen instead of Bulgaria.
“If something has gone wrong somewhere, at any authority, whether locally in Bielefeld, in Paderborn or at state or federal authorities, then the truth must come out,” said NRW Prime Minister Wüst on Monday.
“Stabbed in the back”
Issa al-H. is now being investigated on suspicion of murder and membership of IS, among other things. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office accuses him of planning to “kill as many people as possible who he considered non-believers”. He stabbed visitors to the town festival “repeatedly and deliberately from behind in the neck and upper body area” with a knife. Three people were killed and eight people injured, four of them seriously.
