Iraqi man admits killing 14-yearold German girl but denies rape

An Iraqi man confessed in a German court yesterday to the murder of a teenage girl, but denied raping her in a case that inflamed anti-immigrant tensions last year. “My vision went black and then it happened,” Ali Bashar, 22, testified through an interpreter. “I don’t know how it could have happened.”

His trial for the rape and murder of 14-year-old schoolgirl Susanna Maria Feldman started Tuesday under tight security in Wiesbaden, the city where the killing took place. Bashar denied the rape charge, claiming that he and the girl, who had known each other for several months, had consensual sex before she fell, got angry and threatened to call the police.

For the murder alone, Bashar faces a likely life prison term, which in Germany usually translates to 15 years behind bars. To Germany’s far right, Bashar, who is also accused of twice raping an 11-year-old girl, has become a symbol of the threat allegedly posed by a wave of mostly Middle Eastern newcomers.

Shallow grave

In May last year, Bashar allegedly beat, raped and strangled Susanna to death in a wooded area near his refugee shelter. Her body was then buried in a shallow grave covered with leaves, twigs and soil, near railway tracks. Prosecutors said Bashar then sent false messages from Susanna’s smartphone to her parents, indicating she had left for an impromptu trip to Paris. When her remains were found two weeks later, Bashar and his family had left Germany for Arbil, northern Iraq.

He was however arrested by Kurdish security forces and, despite the absence of a formal extradition treaty between Baghdad and Berlin, taken back to Germany. In a controversial operation personally joined by federal police chief Dieter Romann, Bashar was put on a flight back to Germany, with pictures of him disembarking under heavy police guard making front pages.

Bashar also faces charges for a park robbery in which he allegedly beat and strangled a man and threatened him with a knife. He faces a separate trial from March 19, accused of having twice raped an 11-year-old girl, who was believed to have also been sexually assaulted by an Afghan youth as well as Bashar’s younger brother.