The deportation was carried out based on an agreement between the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the de facto government of Afghanistan, led by the radical Islamist Taliban, to conduct regular deportations. Although the German federal government does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate Afghan government, Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) is working to cooperate with the Islamists on the return of Afghan criminals to their homeland.
Following the conclusion of an agreement with the Taliban government, 20 criminals were deported to Afghanistan at the end of February. The deportation of criminals is "a central component of control, course, and clear edge in migration policy," Dobrindt stated at the time.
Hesse's Minister President Boris Rhein (CDU) expressed relief on Tuesday about the renewed deportation flight. "The deportation to Afghanistan shows that protecting the population has the highest priority for us," Rhein declared. "Anyone who commits serious crimes in Germany has forfeited their right to stay and must leave our country."
Rhein explicitly thanked Dobrindt for making deportations to Afghanistan possible – and called for swift deportations to the former civil war country of Syria as well. Three of the Afghans deported on Tuesday were reportedly returned to their homeland from Hessian custody.
Three Afghans were deported from Saxony, including a man who seriously injured a train driver in the Erzgebirge region in 2023. According to the Saxon state government, the offenders were convicted of various crimes, including offenses against physical integrity. Since August 2021, the state has deported a total of seven people via Leipzig/Halle Airport across three flights.
Two men from Thuringia were on the deportation flight, as confirmed by a spokesman for the Thuringian Ministry of Justice to the RND newsletter "Thüringen zum Mitreden."
The Left Party exercised sharp criticism of the deportations. "Once again, a deportation flight went to Afghanistan - in direct cooperation with the Taliban, who issued the necessary papers to those affected," declared Clara Bünger, deputy leader of the Left Party parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
"With this, the federal government not only plunges those affected by the deportation into misery but also normalizes a regime that disenfranchises girls and women, persecutes political opponents, and publicly executes people."
According to information from "Der Spiegel," a charter aircraft operated by Freebird Airlines departed from Leipzig in the early hours of Tuesday. According to the report, the Airbus A320 was scheduled to fly directly to Kabul after a stopover in Trabzon, Turkey. There, the deported Afghans were to be handed over to the ruling Taliban. Accompanying federal police officers were then to return to Germany on the same aircraft.
Most of those deported were brought directly from custody to Leipzig/Halle Airport, it was further reported in "Der Spiegel." They had been imprisoned in several federal states for various offenses, including theft, receiving stolen goods, drug trafficking, gang rape, manslaughter, hostage-taking, extortionate kidnapping, and politically motivated crimes.
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