Before the special session of the German Bundestag’s Interior Committee on the Magdeburg Christmas market attack, SPD leader Lars Klingbeil called for a hard approach against asylum seekers and recognized refugees who threaten terror attacks. “Who threatens with terrorist attacks loses the right to stay in Germany” he told the Funke Media Group’s Sunday editions.
Referring to the fact that the Magdeburg attacker had threatened an association of doctors with an attack in the past and still received protection, the Social Democrat said: “Such questions must be taken into account in the granting of asylum.”
Klingbeil did not explicitly contradict the recent demands of CDU Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz, who suggested that deportations should be possible even if no criminal offenses have been established.
Instead, he emphasized, looking at initiatives of the SPD-led coalition: “This is no new insight. We have ensured that the right of deportation has been tightened. Whoever threatens with terror or glorifies it must leave the country.”
The Interior Committee of the German Bundestag and the Parliamentary Control Committee, which oversees the intelligence services, are to hold special sessions in Berlin on Monday. The members of parliament want to clarify how the attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market in the old town, which killed five people and injured over 200, was able to occur at the end of last week.
The perpetrator, Taleb A., had been known to the security authorities for many years, SPD leader Klingbeil warned in a conversation with the FUNKE titles at the same time against mixing security issues with migration issues. The opposition in society should not be strengthened. “Alice Weidel and the AfD are trying to instrumentalize the Magdeburg attack for their right-wing agitation. They are hiding the fact that the perpetrator himself shared AfD ideology.”
Klingbeil added: “The Magdeburg clinic gave the right response: people from over 20 nations came together to care for the victims and the injured.” The party leader reiterated the offer to pass new security laws before the planned federal election on February 23rd. “If the investigations in Magdeburg show that the security authorities need more powers, then we can act in the Bundestag before the federal election.”
He generally supports equipping the authorities technically and personally better. A law package in the federal council aims to massively expand the competences of the federal police and electronic facial recognition.
At the special session of the Interior Committee on Monday, in addition to Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), also the minister of the interior of Saxony-Anhalt, Tamara Zieschang (CDU), is expected. Klingbeil said that everything must come to the table. “The interior minister of Saxony-Anhalt has many questions to answer. For example, why the security concept was not properly implemented on the spot. For me, it’s clear: we must quickly, consistently, and without mercy clarify what went wrong.