There are currently 619 people living in Germany who are classified by the security authorities as “Islamist potential attackers”. In addition, 513 people are counted as “relevant” in this context as of the beginning of October. This was reported by the Federal Ministry of the Interior at the request of the newspaper WELT AM SONNTAG. Germany remains “still a potential target of terrorist organisations”, above all of the so-called Islamic state and Al-Qaida.Since the middle of the week, the halt of deportations of such dangerous persons to Syria has been under discussion again. The trigger for this is the arrest of a man from Syria on Tuesday. The Islamist, who is well known to the authorities, is suspected of having stabbed to death a man to death in the street in Dresden at the beginning of October. The suspected perpetrator, who is classified as a dangerous person, had been released from prison only five days earlier.
At present Syria is the only country in Germany to have a complete ban on deportation. Baden-Württemberg’s Interior Minister Thomas Strobl ( Christian Democratic Union) told WELT AM SONNTAG that a partial lifting of this ban would be “a clear security gain for our country”.
Strobl argued: “The vast majority of people in our country – I am one of them, by the way – do not understand why criminals who commit serious crimes, why murderers should not be deported to Syria to safe areas. Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, he said, “has the duty to draw up an up-to-date picture of the situation.His counterpart in North Rhine-Westphalia, Herbert Reul ( Christian Democratic Union, CDU ), said that criminals who had been convicted with final judgement had “forfeited their right to hospitality in Germany, all the more so if they want to overthrow our free and democratic basic order”. The horrible crime in Dresden made this clear once again. At the beginning of December, the Conference of Interior Ministers will decide on an extension.