View of the crime scene after a knife attack in the city centre in Mannheim, Germany, 31 May 2024. EPA-EFE/RONALD WITTEK

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Migrant suspected of killing German policeman ‘lived illegally in country for nine years’

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A migrant who is suspected of fatally stabbing a police officer in his neck in a brutal attack has been living illegally in Germany for nine years, media in the country reports.

Die Welt claims that the suspect, a now 25-year-old Afghan man, is said to have entered Germany in March 2013 and requested asylum.

Authorities reportedly went on to reject his asylum claim in 2014, but never deported him, with the migrant instead remaining in the country for nearly a decade before the alleged incident.

Since then, the suspect received a residence permit from the German authorities as he was married to a German citizen, with whom he now has a child.

According to the media, there are also strong indications that he had been radicalised.

In 2020 he started growing a full beard. A now-deleted YouTube channel ascribed to him reportedly showed the man with a Taliban flag in his profile picture.

He also allegedly uploaded videos of the late Ahmad Zahir Aslamiyar — a radical preacher from Afghanistan who had called for war with the West and died fighting Western troops in his home country.

Aslamiyar is considered a martyr by ISIS-K, a branch of radical Islamists in Afghanistan.

On May 31, the suspect, who is a 25-year-old Afghan man according to media reports, allegedly carried out the knife attack in Mannheim, targeting Islam critic Michael Stürzenberger and others.

During the incident, a policeman was wounded in the neck and died of his injuries on June 2. Footage of the shocking attack has been circulated around the world.

According to German news outlet Bild, more politicians are now pleading for it to be made possible for foreigners who commit criminal acts to be deported to their home nation with immediate effect, even if it is not classified as a safe country of origin.