BKA probes 40 refugees as potential terrorists
May 11, 2016
Since the beginning of the refugee crisis last year, the BKA has received some 369 tipoffs regarding either specific jihadi smugglers or people supporting a terrorist organization, German newspaper "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" reported on Wednesday.
According to statistics provided by the BKA, some 40 investigations have been opened against the suspects, with complaints including the membership in a terrorist organization and the preparation of a serious crime.
The BKA stressed that the threat of a terror attack Germany and Europe remains high.
"More attacks by Islamist terrorist cells cannot be ruled out," the BKA said, adding, however, that they currently have no concrete evidence of a planned attack.
Identity of many refugees 'unclear'
In response the BKA's statistics, the Christian Democratic Union's (CDU) interior affairs expert in the Bundestag, Wolfgang Bosbach, warned of the consequences of terrorists entering the country.
"We must take the dangerous repercussions very, very seriously," Bosbach told the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, adding that the "the dramatic attacks in Paris and Brussels had also made this clear."
Terror attacks across Paris on November 13 left 130 dead and hundreds more wounded. Less than four months later, 32 people were killed when IS supporters targeted Brussels' Zavantem Airport and a metro station in the Belgian capital.
Bosbach also highlighted the fact that the identity of many refugees is unclear, with some 60 percent asylum seekers arriving without a passport.
Decrease in arrivals
Politicians from Germany's Left party, however, have warned against anti-refugee "scaremongering."
The Left's domestic policy spokesperson in the Bundestag, Ulla Jelpke, said, "The possibility that individual IS-members - including trained assassins - could be among refugees mustn't lead to asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq generally being suspected of terrorism."
Germany took in some 1.1 million migrants in 2015 - the largest influx since the Second World War.
The number of arrivals has significantly decreased in recent months, however, largely due to the closure of the Balkan migrant route in early March, which left thousands of refugees stranded in Greece. An EU deal with Turkey also calls for Ankara to house and care for Syrian refugees in exchange for at least 3 billion euros.
According to figures published by the German Interior Ministry on Monday, April saw some 16,000 new arrivals, down from around 21,000 in March, 61,000 in February and 92,000 in January.