BERLIN: German authorities said Thursday they are seeking a fugitive Iraqi asylum-seeker and have arrested a Turkish citizen over the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl who went missing more than two weeks ago.
The body of the girl, who had been missing since May 22, was found Wednesday on the outskirts of Wiesbaden.
Prosecutors said Thursday that two men — a 20-year-old Iraqi and a 35-year-old Turkish citizen, both of whom lived at homes for asylum-seekers in the city — are suspected of raping and killing the girl on the evening she went missing. They believe the two then buried the body.
Police said the Iraqi man, whom they identified as Ali Basar, appears to have left abruptly with his family last week, flying to Iraq via Istanbul. He was a suspect in a string of previous offenses in the area, including a robbery at knifepoint.
He is believed to have arrived in Germany in October 2015, at the height of the migrant influx to Germany, and was appealing against the rejection of his asylum application.
The Turkish suspect, who wasn’t previously known to police, was arrested on Wednesday evening.
Police said that, on Sunday, a 13-year-old refugee boy went to a police station in Wiesbaden, told officers that the girl had been raped and killed, and named the Iraqi as a possible perpetrator.
Previous killings by asylum-seekers in Germany have fanned tensions over the influx of more than a million migrants in 2015 and 2016, an issue that helped the far-right Alternative for Germany enter parliament in last year’s election.
