Austria’s Interior Ministry has announced plans to build camps for failed asylum seekers after two schoolgirls were reportedly murdered by migrants whose asylum applications had been rejected.
Interior Minister Herbert Kickl of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) called for failed asylum seekers to be sent to camps constructed at airports, calling it “a special situation”.
Kickl added: “I am ready to break taboos in the debate about violent asylum seekers.”
He said that a “state emergency response” was needed after two Austrian schoolgirls were murdered by failed asylum seekers in recent weeks.
Kickl even said that criminal Syrians should be send back to their home country, adding: “We will arrange deportation agreements with Syria which will work.”
The interior minister said that failed asylum seekers who cannot be deported should be “locally confined” and “no longer be able to move freely through Austria”.
He said: “You have to imagine this as a sort of transit zone at the airport. There is no turning back, just one direction – for the migrants it is only towards their homeland.
“I am ready to break taboos in this discussion. If the perpetrators are even better protected than the victims, then this is a sign of a decadent society tripping over its own legal system.”
Kickl’s plan follows the murders of two Austrian schoolgirls which shocked the country.
Earlier this month, the body of 16-year-old Manuela K. was found covered by twigs and leaves in a park near her parental home in Wiener Neustadt, a city in the Austrian state of Lower Austria.
The gruesome discovery was made by her mother who went searching through town after Manuela did not arrive home from a night out with friends.
Manuela’s ex-boyfriend, a Syrian asylum seeker named Yazan Al-Malt who claims to be 19 but is now suspected of being much older, was arrested on suspicion of the murder.
One of Manuela’s friends said the two “always fought” and that Al-Malt even physically abused her, after which the Austrian schoolgirl finally decided to dump him and file a criminal complaint against him.
According to local media, he admitted to having murdered his ex-girlfriend but showed no remorse during interrogations.
Al-Malt came to Austria in 2014 at the age of 15 as part of a family reunification programme as his father had already been granted asylum.
However, he immediately racked up a criminal record, after which local authorities started a revocation procedure of his asylum status in October last year.
Shortly before Christmas, 16-year-old Michelle F. was found dead in her bedroom after being stabbed two times in the back.
Austrian cops arrested her boyfriend Saber Akhondzada, a 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, on suspicion of the murder.
According to the victim’s family, the Afghan national tried to limit his girlfriend’s movements and ordered her to not talk to other men.
Akhondzada arrived in Austria in the spring of 2016, but his asylum application was later rejected.
He reportedly told Michelle’s brother that he had to flee from Afghanistan because he had committed a murder.
Even though Akhondzada’s application was denied, he received subsidiary protection in Austria until 2020.
Story By: Koen Berghuis, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
