Ali B .: The suspect was arrested in Iraq – he will soon be on trial

Ali B .: The suspect was arrested in Iraq – he will soon be on trial

December 2016: At the end of the year, Ali B.’s asylum application was rejected.

January 2017: A lawsuit is filed against the rejection notice at the administrative court in Wiesbaden. Due to the ongoing proceedings, B. receives a residence permit.

April 2017: When a woman from a group of people is molested in downtown Wiesbaden, witnesses intervene. The situation turns into a fight. Ali B.’s name appears in connection with this incident. A suspicion is not confirmed, the proceedings are discontinued.

February 2018: In Wiesbaden a man is beaten by three men. Ali B. is found near the crime scene, but denies his involvement. Because the victim is silent, the proceedings are closed.

March 2018: Ali B. bumps into a policewoman in downtown Wiesbaden, lashes out and spits. More officials are called and take the Iraqi into custody. The proceedings in this case will soon be forwarded to the public prosecutor’s office.

April 2018: B. and another person are said to have threatened a man with a knife and dragged him into a bush. The victim was robbed and then escaped. Later in April, during an inspection, a folding knife was found at B. The city’s application for violating the ban on possession of weapons was received by the Wiesbaden police on June 4th.

May 14, 2018: The Wiesbaden police received the notification that an 11-year-old girl in the Wiesbaden refugee shelter, where the suspect also lived, was allegedly raped by a man named Ali. The act already occurred in March. The girl’s statements do not allow B.s to be clearly identified as the perpetrator.

The location of Susanna’s body in Wiesbaden: On May 22nd, the 14-year-old was raped and murdered. (Source: dpa)

May 22, 2018: 14-year-old Susanna from Mainz does not come back home in the evening. The mother receives a WhatsApp message from her daughter’s cell phone saying that Susanna has gone to Paris with a friend. The woman doubts the authenticity of the message.

May 23, 2018: Susanna’s mother reports the student to the police in Mainz as missing. She also posts search messages on social networks.

May 29, 2018: A friend of Susanna’s contacts the mother of the missing person. She says the 14-year-old is dead and her body is lying on a railroad track. With the tip, the mother turns to the police in Mainz and in neighboring Wiesbaden, where Susanna often stayed. According to the Wiesbaden police, the acquaintance could not initially be questioned because she was away. How she knew about Susanna’s murder is not yet known. 

May 30, 2018: The police in Wiesbaden took over the case. A police helicopter is used in the search for Susanna. The operation remains fruitless.

May 31, 2018: The caretaker of the refugee shelter where Ali B. and his relatives lived later stated that he saw the family for the last time that day.

Ali B .: The suspect was arrested in Iraq – he will soon be on trial. (Source: Police Wiesbaden / dpa)

June 1, 2018: Eight tickets for a trip from Düsseldorf to Istanbul are booked for the B. family via an online booking portal. The Turkish Airlines flight is scheduled to take off in the early morning of the following day. On the evening of June 1st, Diana F., Susanna’s mother, ventured out on social media. The police do not take the case seriously enough. Cell phone tracking and other measures would only have been taken under pressure from the family lawyer. The police later said they did not investigate immediately because Susanna skipped school and often did not come home. 

June 2, 2018: Ali B. and his family do not take the originally booked flight. A rebooking to a flight in the evening is paid for in cash. The family passes the ID check at Düsseldorf Airport at 6 p.m. The eight residence permits, boarding passes and two so-called laissez-passer papers for four people each are presented.persuasive essay topics on sports These can be issued either by the Iraqi embassy or the Federal Police and serve as a kind of pass if you lose your passport. In the specific case, according to the police, the papers were issued by the Iraqi authorities and were valid. According to the police, the flight is booked for all eight people under other names than known. During the ID check, a photo comparison takes place between the individual documents. The Federal Police confirmed in a statement that a comparison between the ticket and the passport document was not intended and was therefore not made. At the time of legal departure, Ali B. is not yet being searched for.

June 3, 2018: After the family lands in Istanbul late on Saturday evening, the suspect and his relatives travel to Erbil, Iraq, at noon on June 3. On the evening of the same day, a 13-year-old refugee reports to the police in Wiesbaden. The young person lives in the same accommodation that Ali B. had left shortly before. He reports to the police that Susanna was raped and murdered and where her body is believed to be found. He also names Ali B. as a possible perpetrator. The suspect is said to have bragged about his act in front of the youth.

June 4, 2018: Ali B. is officially put out for a wanted man because of the urgent suspicion in the murder of Susanna. In the following days, the police searched the area around the railroad tracks in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim again. In addition, the family’s apartment in the refugee accommodation is examined.

June 6, 2018: An officer finds a female corpse in a hole in the ground next to the train tracks. A white clothing label had drawn his attention to the job. In the meantime, a Turkish refugee is arrested in the evening who is suspected of having raped, murdered and buried Susanna together with B.

June 7, 2018: It’s a sad certainty. The body found is clearly identified as Susanna. In the evening, the Turkish suspect is released again – there is no longer any urgent suspicion. The search for 20-year-old B. is running at high pressure. There is no extradition agreement between Iraq and Germany. Nevertheless, the German authorities hope to gain access to the alleged perpetrator.

June 8, 2018: Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announces in a press conference that the suspect Ali B. was arrested in Iraq by Kurdish security forces. The delivery is now carried out according to international procedures.

Murdered young people: Suspect in the Susanna case is free again Susanna killed in Wiesbaden: Suspect Ali B. arrested in Iraq

June 9, 2018: According to information from «Wiesbadener Kurier» and «Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz», Ali B. is extradited to Germany by the authorities in Iraq. He should be brought to Frankfurt from Iraq on Saturday in custody of the federal police. 

June 9, 2018: Ali B. is said to have confessed to the crime in Wiesbaden to the authorities in northern Iraq. The Kurdish-Iraqi TV broadcaster Rudaw reports, citing a local police officer, that Ali B. testified after his arrest in northern Iraq that there had been a dispute with Susanna, Police General Tarik Ahmed from the city of Dohuk told the broadcaster. The girl tried to call the police, which Ali B. then drove to the act.

Sources used: own research

Sydney (AP) – Three men have been arrested in Australia for smuggling weapon parts into children’s toys. The suspects, aged 25, 26 and 33 years old, had hidden parts of small arms in toy motorcycles and brought them into the country, the police said.

During searches in Melbourne and Sydney, material for several dozen weapons was seized. The men now face up to ten years in prison for violating the strict Australian gun laws. The police did not say from which country the weapon parts were imported.

Federal Police Chief Dieter Romann personally flew to Iraq to bring Ali B. back to Germany. Now doubts and criticism of the action are growing – also abroad.

In the Susanna case, the Iraqi government criticized the transfer of suspect Ali B. to Germany as a legal violation. There is no agreement between the two countries on the extradition of wanted persons, said the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad. Both the Kurdish regional government and Germany committed the violation. Only the Justice Ministry of the Iraqi central government in Baghdad has the authority to exchange wanted persons.

The Iraqi refugee Ali B. is suspected of having raped and killed 14-year-old Susanna in Wiesbaden. After the fact, he fled to the Kurdish autonomous regions in northern Iraq and was arrested there. Kurdish security forces handed him over to German police officers in the regional capital Erbil on Saturday, who escorted him back to Germany. The chief of the federal police, Dieter Romann, had flown personally to northern Iraq to pick up the suspect.

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Federal Police Chief Dieter Romann: Did he act on his own when searching for a suspect? Has he made himself a criminal offense? (Source: Michael Kappeler / dpa)

The Karlsruhe defense attorney Daniel Sprafke has since filed a complaint against Romann and other police officers – for deprivation of liberty, as the «Spiegel» reports. There is a suspicion that Romann «initiated the search personally and without an investigation,» the magazine quotes from the advertisement. 

The attorney’s reasoning> There was no international arrest warrant or extradition request – so how could the action be lawful? The custodial measures thus had no legal basis, writes the «Spiegel». The complainant therefore draws a parallel to the Khaled al-Masri case, which was illegally kidnapped by the CIA in 2003.

Seehofer has to correct himself

Shortly after the action, there was confusion as to who had known about it and when. While the news magazine «Focus» cited information from government circles that Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and his State Secretary had approved the action, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry initially expressly denied this in an interview with «Spiegel». The federal police again contradicted this representation of the interior ministry.

Then on Tuesday the 180-degree turnaround in the Ministry of the Interior: Again opposite the «Spiegel» a spokeswoman admits that the Federal Police President «called Minister Seehofer on Saturday afternoon from Erbil and informed them about the imminent transfer». Seehofer had «had him confirm the legality of the measure».

Susanna case: main suspect Ali B. confessed to killing Susanna case: suspect back in Germany: nocturnal interrogation

Was there no legal basis?

The Brandenburg Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed the receipt of the complaint against Romann in «Spiegel» on Tuesday. Now the responsibility of the public prosecutor’s offices still has to be clarified. 

According to information from «Focus», the German investigators were under considerable time pressure: The authorities in the autonomous northern Iraq are said to have threatened to release Ali B. or to put him in the next plane to Germany. The Federal Police and the Ministry of the Interior wanted to avoid both in any case.

Sources used: with material from dpaSpiegel Online: «Lawyer shows Federal Police Chief Romann» Message from the Federal PolicePicture: «Heroes-Policeman and GSG9 got Susanna’s murderer» (Paywall) Focus: «Kurds threatened the Ministry of the Interior» show more sources less sources

In the Susanna murder case, the head of the federal police personally brought suspect Ali B. back to Germany from Iraq – possibly illegally. Two opinions on this.

When Federal Police Chief Dieter Romann and other officials brought the suspect in the Susanna case to Germany from Iraq, the tabloid quickly coined the terms: A «hero police officer» prevented a suspected murderer from escaping with great personal commitment.

Only then did doubts arise: What were the legal bases for the deployment? The Interior Ministry initially denied having known anything about the operation – but then had to admit that it had been informed. Its use is legally controversial and therefore politically sensitive.

Criminal charges are now running against the chief of the federal police and his emergency services. The Iraqi government accuses Germany of violating the law. Two editors from t-online.de have very different opinions on the case. Was it lawful? 

Daniel Schreckenberg

editor

Per

Dull paragraph cavalry has no place in the Ali B. case

The transfer of Ali B. to Germany was most likely illegal – and yet it was completely right. What is a contradiction at first glance has to be accepted in the case of the arrest of the alleged murderer of 14-year-old Susanna.