A 39-year-old Tajik man, who was sentenced to five years in prison in Germany in 2017 for being a member of the Islamic State, was scheduled to be taken into custody for deportation on Monday after a previous deportation ban for Tajikistan was lifted. However, he armed himself with a knife and spent three hours causing a disturbance in a police station in Oelde, North Rhine-Westphalia, before being overpowered by the special response unit. According to a report by the Welt newspaper.
The man is now at large, as he had previously called the Higher Administrative Court in Münster to prevent his deportation. The court granted his emergency application, ruling that the man might face torture in Tajikistan and that no one should be deported to a country where there is a threat to life and limb.
The head of the Warendorf district, where Oelde is located, expressed his discontent with the decision. “We have been trying to deport the man for ten years” said Olaf Gericke. “In my opinion, the security interests of local residents should take precedence over the question of how a terrorist fares in his home country.”
The Tajik government had previously assured that the man would be safe in Tajikistan, but the Münster court countered that the reliability of this statement is unclear. Although further proceedings are still pending in the man’s case, he will be allowed to remain in Germany for the time being.
It is currently unknown whether the man initiated the emergency application on his own or if a non-profit organization, funded by taxpayers, was involved in the process.