BERLIN — A rejected Iraqi asylum-seeker accused of murdering and raping a 14-year-old local girl has gone on trial in Germany, in a case that fueled tensions over migration.
The 22-year-old Ali Bashar is accused of assaulting and killing Susanna Feldman in the western city of Wiesbaden in May. Bashar and his family abruptly left a home for asylum applicants in Germany after the killing, and he was later extradited from Iraq.
Bashar’s trial opened at the state court in Wiesbaden on Tuesday and is scheduled to last at least until early May.
He is believed to have arrived in Germany in October 2015, at the height of the migrant influx to the country, and was appealing the rejection of his asylum application at the time of the killing.
The Associated Press
