Refugee on trial for rape-murder of German student

Freiburg: A young refugee who claims to be from Afghanistan went on trial for the rape and murder of a German student, in a case that shocked the country and reignited tensions over its liberal asylum policy.

The accused, identified by the court as Huseen K., was arrested in the southwestern town of Freiburg last December, accused of brutally raping a 19-year-old medical student and leaving her for dead on a riverbank seven weeks earlier.

An autopsy concluded that the woman had drowned, with the asylum seeker’s DNA found at the scene.

The crime made headlines nationwide and triggered a fresh wave of anger over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees at the height of Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015.

“This is the trial the whole country has been waiting for,” Germany’s best-selling tabloid Bild wrote.

Outrage was fuelled by the revelation that the man had previously been jailed for attempted murder in Greece for pushing a woman off a cliff in Corfu in 2014.

He was sentenced to 10 years but walked free after serving little more than a year as part of a Greek initiative to free up space in the country’s crowded prisons.

The Greek authorities then lost track of him and he arrived in Germany in 2015, registering as an unaccompanied minor from Afghanistan.

Critics have used the case to highlight what they see as the poor vetting of asylum seekers during the chaotic influx of 2015, and the lack of communication between countries about migrants with criminal backgrounds.

Questions still remain about the suspect’s age and background.

The accused claims he was 17 at the time of the murder, but German prosecutors believe he is at least 22 years old today and want him to be tried as an adult.

They accuse him of “maliciously” attacking the young woman as she was cycling home that evening “to satisfy his sexual urges” before leaving the unconscious victim to drown.

The accused was born in Iran, according to court documents, but the suspect himself has said he is from Afghanistan.

Sixteen days of hearings have been scheduled for the trial, with a verdict expected in December at the earliest.