In February 2023, Germany deported a man to Niger in a specially chartered plane. The foreigner was a convicted rapist.
The repatriation cost 120,450 euros, as the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” reports, citing the Interior Ministry of Saxony-Anhalt. This is the result of a response by the federal government to a small request from the Left Party group in the Bundestag.
The asylum seeker from Niger raped a girl in Dessau in June 2019 and was sentenced to five and a half years in prison. Since 2019, the Ministry of the Interior of Saxony-Anhalt has been trying to deport the man. However, this failed due to a lack of travel documents. It was not until the end of 2022 that Niger issued the necessary documents, which were only valid for one day and one flight. The authority therefore decided on a mini-charter flight from Leipzig to avoid any risk of a flight cancellation.
The Saxon Interior Ministry sees the costs as entirely justified: protecting the population from further crimes was ultimately more important. In addition, the costs for accommodation and food for an asylum seeker amount to around 11,000 euros per year. Possible costs from further possible crimes, which “would exceed the flight costs incurred in the foreseeable future”, were also taken into account, the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” quoted the Interior Ministry as saying.
Last year, 15 deportations were carried out by private jet, with up to four people per plane. A total of 41 people were deported this way, most of them to Turkey.