Bad Kreuznach county in the German State of Rhineland-Palatinate has been paying €40,000 per month for private security services to monitor an allegedly aggressive asylum seeker around the clock, it has been revealed.
Lengthy appeals to authorities to deport the man whose asylum claim had been rejected had until recently reportedly fallen on deaf ears.
The 20-year-old unnamed Afghan came to the area close to Frankfurt/Main in September 2023 and was first housed in a shared living facility in the municipality Rüdesheim.
Whilst there, claimed Markus Lüttger, mayor of the town: “He attacked his roommates with a stick, smashed crockery and destroyed windowpanes.”
Lüttger alleged the man often threatened others for religious reasons, accusing his roommates of not living in line with their faith correctly and waking them in the middle of the night to get them to pray.
German media have not disclosed the Afghani’s faith.
Administrators then transferred him to a shelter for refugees in Windesheim, reportedly believing the more controlled support there would stop any further aggression.
That apparently did not happen, with the man reportedly threatening and attacking residents and employees of the facility.
He has since been placed in a private facility to live where he is fed alone and does not interact with other residents on his own.
Bad Kreuznach at the same time hired a private security company to monitor the man – who is allowed to move around freely – accompanied by two officials.
According to district councillor Bettina Dickes, the surveillance has been costing the county – which numbers 160,000 inhabitants – €40,000 per month.
Dickes said she had already asked the integration ministry of Rhineland-Palatinate on November 22 last year to organise the man’s deportation, whose claim for asylum had previously been rejected. The ministry is led by Katharina Binz of the Greens.
In mid-January, the ministry said it had forwarded the request to the federal Interior Ministry led by Nancy Faeser, which would have to make the final decision.
It reportedly said the man’s deportation could only take place if German authorities organised a deportation flight to Afghanistan.
Germany has only sent one plane with rejected Afghan asylum seekers back to their country since the Taliban took over again in 2020.
In August 2024, following a deadly stabbing attack, allegedly by an Afghan, on a German critic of Islam and a policeman in Mannheim, the government deported 28 Afghan asylum seekers to Kabul. Many of them have reportedly been freed by the Taliban since arriving.
On January 24, the interior ministry confirmed that a second deportation flight to Afghanistan had been scheduled for February 22 – one day before the national elections.
The people of Bad Kreuznach were reportedly now hoping that the issue will be settled then. “We are close to despair,” said Bad Kreuznach councillor Dickes of the affair.
