Berlin attack: Merkel wants more failed asylum seekers expelled

Chancellor Angela Merkel says she has told Tunisia’s President Beji Caid Essebsi in a phone call that Germany wants to speed up the deportation of failed asylum seekers and increase the number of those expelled.

Speaking after Italian police shot dead Berlin truck attack suspect Anis Amri, himself a failed Tunisian asylum seeker, she said questions had been raised not only about the attack but also about the time before he came to Germany in July 2015.

“We are going to check, with urgency, the extent to which government measures must be changed,” said Merkel, who is standing for a fourth term in 2017, despite waning popularity due to her open-door migrant policy.

How the Berlin truck attack will change Germany https://t.co/dlquLdPUSR pic.twitter.com/9kk64i4gNG— The Local Germany (@TheLocalGermany) 23 décembre 2016

Recognising the ongoing terrorist threat, she defended German society.

“Our democracy, our constitutional state, our values, our humanity – are the opposite model to the hatred of terrorism and they will be stronger than terrorism,” Merkel told reporters.

with Reuters