Iraqi Kurdish man admits to murdering 14-year-old German teenager: Duhok Police Chief

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A 20-year-old Iraqi Kurdish man admitted to murdering a teenage girl in Germany, police in the Kurdistan Region governorate of Duhok said on Saturday.

Duhok city police chief Tariq Ahmed told Kurdistan 24 the suspect, Ali Bashar, had confessed to murdering 14-year old German teenager Susanna Feldman following interrogation by Kurdish security authorities.

“After we received his info and photos from the [German] Ministry of Interior, we searched for him in Zakho and found him very shortly in one of the neighborhoods in the city,” Ahmed said. “He admitted that he killed the girl.”

“He had been staying at a hotel in Duhok and after realizing the police were after him left for Zakho to stay at a relative’s house. He was asleep there at night and was arrested in that house at 5:30 a.m.,” the police chief explained.

According to Ahmed, Bashar and the German teen were friends who were “on a trip to the woods” where “they consumed a lot of alcohol and drugs” before getting into an argument where the girl then tried to call the police.

Fearing a severe charge if the police showed up as the teenager was under 18, Ahmed said the Iraqi “choked her and buried her beneath the dirt.”

The body of the Jewish teenager was discovered in a woodlot in Wiesbaden on Wednesday. German authorities said the crime scene was near a refugee camp where Bashar had been living since 2015.

An autopsy revealed signs of a violent and sexual attack, Reuters reported, although police denied there was any evidence her religion had been a factor in the assault.

German media, meanwhile, suggested Bashar might be extradited and tried in Germany.

Duhok police chief Ahmed said the Kurdistan Region has “strong ties with Germany, European countries, and with Interpol regarding this case,” but any decision to extradite the Iraqi Kurdish man “depends on what the Kurdistan Regional Government and the German government agree on.”