By Riham Alkousaa and Ludwig Burger
BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Germany said it resumed flying convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country on Friday, days before German regional elections in which migration is a campaign issue.
Berlin stopped returning people to Afghanistan because of human rights concerns after the Taliban took power in 2021.
Pressure has increased on the coalition government to reverse that suspension after a fatal stabbing linked to Islamic State at a city festival a week ago and another knife attack in June when an Afghan man killed a German policeman.
The government, which on Thursday introduced a package of measures to tighten asylum policy and speed up deportations, is mindful of elections on Sunday in the eastern states of Saxony and Thuringia. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is leading in the polls with its anti-migration stance.
Spiegel magazine first reported that a Kabul-bound flight took off from Leipzig early on Friday with 28 convicted criminals onboard after months of secret negotiations with mediator Qatar.
"I have announced that we will also deport criminals to Afghanistan. We have prepared this carefully without talking about it much," Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a news conference at a mine site in Saxony on Friday.
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck told Reuters the right to asylum in Germany must remain untouched.
In a statement, the government thanked "key regional partners" for their support and said it was working on more deportations. It did not name the partners.
Qatar's flagship Al Jazeera TV on early Saturday quoted an official from the Qatari foreign ministry as saying Doha facilitated negotiations between Germany and Afghanistan's Taliban to help return Afghans to their country based on their legal status.
The quoted source said Qatar's role came based on a request from Germany and after the Taliban's acceptance of the German request.
"Doha's efforts are part of its role in facilitating communication between the Afghani government and the international community," Al Jazeera quoted the source as saying.
Negotiating directly with the Taliban, some of whose officials are under international sanctions, is problematic.
ProAsyl, a German NGO providing legal and practical assistance to asylum seekers, said Friday's deportation could become part of an irresponsible normalisation of the Taliban regime.
"This is a declaration of bankruptcy for the constitutional state," Tareq Alaows, ProAsyl refugee policy spokesperson, said in a statement.
A German foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday the government would not normalise relations with the Taliban and the deportation was not a step to doing so.
In addition to Afghanistan, Berlin is also working on deporting individuals who have committed serious crimes or are deemed terrorist threats to Syria.
Deportations to Syria have also been banned in Germany but in July, a court in the western city of Muenster ruled that it no longer saw any general danger of civil war for asylum seekers from Syria.
The number of asylum seekers in Germany dropped 19.7% in the first seven months of 2024 compared to previous year to 140,783 applications, with the largest groups of applicants coming from Syria, 44,191 applications, and Afghanistan, 22,698 applications.
Some German public opinion turned against deportations in 2018 after the German interior minister said he had deported 69 Afghans on his 69th birthday. One of them, a 23-year-old Afghan refugee, committed suicide upon arrival in Kabul.