Man who admitted killing German Jewish teen extradited

An Iraqi asylum seeker who admitted murdering 14-year-old Susanna Feldman was returned to Germany by the autonomous Kurdish state in Iraq to stand trial.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

In a speedy end to a two-week-old murder mystery, Ali Bashar, 20, was placed in German custody on Saturday after found in Iraq by security authorities the previous day.

He will stand trial for raping and killing a Jewish girl, Susanna Feldman, a 14-year-old with whom he had been acquainted.

Bashar, an asylum seeker who arrived in Germany with his parents and five siblings in 2015 from Iraq, managed to flee with them to that country’s Kurdish region by using false papers after the murder, flying via Istanbul, Turkey.

The authorities have not said as yet how they managed to cross international borders in such a fashion.

However, only 24 hours after the Germans issued an international warrant for his arrest, the local police caught Bashar in Erbil, Iraq. He allegedly admitted to the crimes and was quickly sent on a plane in order to stand trial even though Germany and Iraq do not have an existing extradition treaty.

Feldman’s body was discovered Wednesday in a wooded area of Wiesbaden. Bashar lived with his family in a refugee facility in the city, and the breakthrough in the case came when a teenage boy who lived in the same facility went to police, telling them he knew the girl had been murdered and naming Bashar as the possible culprit.

German authorities confirmed that the victim had been sexually assaulted, with strangulation being the probable cause of death. They were quoted by Reuters as stating that they do not believe Susanna Feldman’s religion had anything to do with the case.

Tariq Ahmad, police chief of the Dohuk region in Iraq, was quoted by Arutz 7 as stating that Bashar said he killed Feldman after she threatened to get in touch with the authorities.

“The girl was a friend of his,” Ahmad said. “They went on a trip to the woods and there they consumed a lot of alcohol and drugs, then got into a dispute, and the girl tried to call the police.”

Bashar was already known to the police, being a suspect in several fights, a violent robbery, and the rape of an 11-year-old girl. The latter case received wide media attention in Germany and his request for asylum was turned down in December 2016, although he obtained a temporary residence permit due to his appeal of the verdict.

Widespread condemnation is again being heard about the government’s handling of the migrant crisis caused by admitting a million illegal immigrants over the past few years without proper vetting.