German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she is in favor of tougher deportation laws after dozens of sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve, allegedly committed by asylum seekers.
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Federal police have identified 18 asylum seekers in the Cologne crowd, German Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias Plate said in Berlin on Friday.
The Post reports German authorities identified the nationalities of the suspects as “10 Algerians, 10 Moroccans, five Iranians, four Syrians, two Germans, one American, one Serbian and one Iraqi”. He said items which could constitute evidence were found and confiscated from both individuals, without providing details.
Proposed measures could mean people’s right to seek asylum would be revoked if they were convicted of crimes.
State Interior Minister Ralf Jaeger’s move came after Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker complained that Albers had not given her all relevant information about the molesting, groping and robbing of more than 100 women at the central square near the Cologne Cathedral.
News agency dpa and Cologne’s Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper reported Friday that Wolfgang Albers will enter early retirement.
They initially failed to mention the attacks around Cologne’s main train station in their report the following morning, describing the New Year’s festivities as “largely peaceful”.
The paper says those who have been sentenced to prison or probation should be ineligible for asylum.
Police have faced criticism for their response, and German media reported Thursday on an internal police report that suggested officers were overwhelmed by the situation on New Year’s Eve.
Police said several women had alleged sexual assault.
The state police in Cologne have recorded 170 charges of offenses, 117 of which call for sexual assault.
“This is in the interests of the citizens of Germany, but also in the interests of the great majority of the refugees who are here”, Merkel said at a party meeting in Mainz.
She described the New Year’s assaults as “repugnant criminal acts that…”
None of the 31 is now suspected of committing sexual assaults – the aspect of the Cologne assaults that has prompted outrage in Germany over the past week.
Hundred-strong teams of police were deployed on Saturday to locations across the western German city, totalling 1700 officers, a spokesman said.
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Asked about similarities to assaults in Germany, Bruun said “we are aware of what happened in Germany, but we are focusing our investigation on what happened in Kalmar”.
