By Rachel More
BERLIN (Reuters) – The arrest of an Afghan asylum seeker suspected of killing two people in a stabbing attack targeting children in a German park has sparked calls for a much tougher migration stance lasts and has boosted the campaign for the February 23 national elections in Germany.
The suspect, a 28-year-old Afghan national with a history of violent behavior and who was receiving psychiatric treatment, was scheduled to appear before a judge Thursday afternoon. The judge will decide on his pre-trial detention.
The suspect had had his asylum procedure closed and said he would leave Germany voluntarily in December, but he had not left and remained under treatment, Bavaria’s interior minister said.
A two-year-old boy of Moroccan origin and a 41-year-old man who tried to intervene in the attack on Wednesday in a park in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg have died from their injuries. Three other people were injured.
“My wish list would be that we have a real expulsion policy, that people who are forced to leave the country also leave this country,” said Katrin Burger, organizer of a protest rally held Wednesday evening in Aschaffenburg.
The stabbings add to a series of violent attacks in Germany that have heightened concerns over security and migration and fueled support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. whom opinion polls place in second position behind traditional conservatives.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, followed by the Social Democrats (SPD), called an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening with his Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and the security authorities, calling the attack an “incredible terrorist act” .
“I am tired of seeing such acts of violence happening here every few weeks. From perpetrators who actually came to us to find protection here,” Scholz said in a statement.
“A false sense of tolerance is completely inappropriate. The authorities must work hard to find out why the attacker was still in Germany. Consequences must follow immediately from the conclusions – it is not enough to talk.”
“POLITICAL RESPONSES”
Friedrich Merz, election favorite and leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), said: “This affects us, it hurts us, it calls for clear political responses.”
However, some Germans accuse the CDU, and particularly Merz’s predecessor and long-time chancellor Angela Merkel, of encouraging the massive influx of asylum seekers and migrants, mainly from the Middle East and Afghanistan, in 2015.
AfD leader Tino Chrupalla, whose party won the support of tech billionaire Elon Musk and who was the only German party leader to attend US President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, demanded a change in the asylum policy.
“Dangerous asylum seekers must be deported. We want to maintain diplomatic contacts with Afghanistan to this end. Dangerous parks must be cleared of criminals and made accessible again to children and families,” Chrupalla said on X .
The Liberal Democrats also demanded closer contacts with the Afghan Taliban, like Austria, to facilitate the expulsion of rejected asylum seekers.
Investigators into Wednesday’s attack are focusing primarily on the suspect’s psychological illness, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said, adding that an initial search of his accommodation at an asylum seeker shelter had failed. revealed no evidence of radical Islamist sympathies.