Fatal knife attack in Lower Saxony – suspect tolerated

After a fatal knife attack in Lower Saxony, more and more details and light are emerging. It has now been revealed: The suspect was tolerated – but had filed a lawsuit.

The suspected perpetrator in the case of a hotel operator killed in Sarstedt was on a tolerated status. He was not allowed to be deported because he filed a lawsuit against his impending deportation to Iraq, the Lower Saxony Interior Ministry announced. The 35-year-old is accused of stabbing the operator of the hotel, which serves as a refugee accommodation facility. The suspect is in custody.

According to the Interior Ministry, he was transferred to Poland after a rejected asylum application in August 2017. In June 2022, he re-entered the country and submitted a new asylum application, a so-called second application. After the application was rejected again in August 2022 and a threatened deportation to Iraq, the suspect filed a lawsuit and submitted an urgent application, which was granted. Since September 2022, he has therefore been considered tolerated. Those tolerated are required to leave the country, but cannot be deported for certain reasons, for example because they do not have identification documents or are ill.

The lawsuit is therefore on hold because the responsible administrative court in Hanover wants to wait for a decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on how to deal with second applications. This has been pending since the end of 2022. It is uncertain when the ECJ will make a ruling, the administrative court said.

On Monday, the 35-year-old is said to have killed the 61-year-old hotel owner near Sarstedt train station. He was arrested on Monday evening and has been in custody since Tuesday on suspicion of manslaughter. According to current information, the Iraqi resident of the accommodation run by the victim. Before the crime, there was an argument between the two men, who can look after themselves. There is no evidence of a terrorist or Islamist motive.

According to information from the State Ministry of the Interior, 20,593 people in Lower Saxony were required to leave the country as of July 31. 16,608 asylum seekers were tolerated, 1,978 of whom come from Iraq. According to the Integration Media Service, 226,882 people in Germany are required to leave the country nationwide, of which 182,727 are with and 44,155 are without so-called tolerated status (as of June 30).

According to the Hanover Administrative Court, the fact that complicated asylum procedures took several years to process has partly led to a shortage of judges. In the first half of 2024, asylum seekers in Lower Saxony waited almost 18 months for their procedure; that is almost ten months less than in 2022, said a spokeswoman for the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice. The state government and the Ministry of Justice say they want to speed up the asylum procedure.