Claudia Roth at Maischberger
Do not deport the Mannheim attacker
By Marko Schlichting
05.06.2024, 04:21 a.m.
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth of the Green Party speaks out against deporting the police officer murderer from Mannheim. On “Maischberger” she explains why she is in favor of the alleged Islamist being punished in Germany.
“Mannheim was horrible. Mannheim was a horrific crime.” That’s what the Green Party’s Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth said on the ARD talk show “Maischberger” on Tuesday evening. Who would contradict her?
It concerns the alleged Islamist murder of the police officer Rouven L. in Mannheim. The alleged murderer: Sulaiman A. He has lived in Germany since 2014. His asylum application was rejected. But because the Taliban regime rules in his home country Afghanistan, he cannot be deported. A. is considered integrated. But on Friday he injured six people with a knife at an event organized by the anti-Islam movement Pax Europa. Among them was the police officer. The 29-year-old died in hospital on Sunday afternoon.
Claudia Roth is deeply affected by the crime. “Of course my thoughts and my grief are with the relatives and the many police officers who are now mourning the loss of a comrade, a friend and a loved one, and who work every day to ensure our safety,” said the politician on Tuesday evening on “Maischberger”.
“Islamist terror is dangerous. We have known this since the Breitscheidplatz attack, the terrible attack in Berlin during the Christmas season.” On December 19, 2016, an Islamist terrorist drove a semi-trailer truck into a crowd at a Christmas market and killed thirteen people.
Even then, there was discussion about how to combat Islamism in Germany. Perhaps not enough, especially among the Greens, admitted their co-chair Ricarda Lang on Sunday evening in the ARD talk show “Caren Miosga”. Now there are calls for the deportation of migrants who have committed crimes.
In the Mannheim case, Claudia Roth is against it. “This crime happened in Germany. I think that a criminal who committed a crime in Germany should be brought before a German court. He should be sentenced in Germany and serve his sentence here,” demands Roth. “If this person were sent to Afghanistan, they would probably celebrate him as a great hero there. He would escape punishment.” In Germany, the suspected murderer will face a very long sentence. Roth assumes this.
Climate policy of the federal government
The interview on “Maischberger” was actually supposed to focus on the question of whether the Greens are overtaxing the population with their policies. The topic is only mentioned very briefly, and Roth gives the expected answer in a somewhat convoluted way: she doesn’t believe so. However, the effects of the flood of the century in parts of Bavaria at the weekend show how important good climate policy is. This also happened in Babenhausen near Memmingen, where the politician grew up. She knows her way around there. She calls what happened there at the weekend “a brutal accident, a real catastrophe.” She knows: “The climate crisis is here and now.”
And yet the traffic light coalition has recently watered down the climate protection law, and the expert commission appointed by the federal government fears that Germany will not reach its climate crisis. Moderator Maischberger addresses the politician on this point. She refers to the Federal Environment Agency, which contradicted the experts. And the expert commission also assumes that the goals can be achieved “if what has been planned is done and if the financing is right.” However, the government is not in agreement on financing, especially on the debt brake or the establishment of possible special funds.
Roth also doesn’t really like the watering down of the climate protection law. “If the Greens were alone in government, things would be different,” she says. What is needed now is more investment in climate protection. “If we don’t do that, it will cost us much, much more.”