Germany: Judge Blocks Deportation of Convicted Former IS Supporter to Tajikistan After Police Station Riot

A convicted asylum seeker from Tajikistan, who was supposed to have been deported back to his home country, managed to avoid deportation by holding a knife to his own throat and threatening to injure himself inside a police station.

The Higher Administrative Court in Münster (OVG) responded by temporarily stopping the 39-year-old man’s deportation.

Police say the Tajik man placed a knife to his throat in the police station on Monday and physically resisted officers. During the incident, the man managed to hurt his own stomach and damage a door with a chair. The police negotiated with him for three hours before they managed to make him surrender his knife, at which point special forces arrested him.

The next day, the court heard the emergency application for the man to avoid deportation and ruled the man could stay in Germany. The court argued the man may be at risk for torture if he is deported.

In 2017, the man was sentenced to five years in prison for membership in a terror organization, the Islamic State. After finishing his sentence, he was supposed to be sent back home. Previously, Germany had a ban on deportations to Tajikistan but that order has since been lifted.

Tajikistan has a reputation for torturing political opponents, but the government claims the man will be safe.

The judges’ decision in Münster is not final and further proceedings will take place to decide whether the man will be deported.

Warendorf District Administrator Olaf Gericke (CDU) reacted to the incident, saying: “The case shows how diverse the options are to legally defend oneself against deportation — and how difficult the legal situation makes it to deport even criminals or convicted terrorists from Germany.”

Gericke noted that the man is currently no longer in custody and his whereabouts are unknown.