Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Sami A Saga Continues

About four weeks ago, I essayed over the episode in Germany with Tunisian Sami A (the former Bin Laden driver).  The basic story is that he'd ended up in Germany after the US released him, and the Germans evaluated his application for asylum.  The original decision was 'no'.....with deportation the next likely event.  Well....Sami went onto an appeal.  Somewhere in the shuffling of paperwork, the local authorities proceeded on with deportation, and Tunisia took him back.  Course, they had questions and he's being interrogated.  Then the German court system woke up and said that deportation was absolutely illegal, and got all upset.  They ordered the city authorities to go and fetch Sami back.  The city authorities then counter-sued the court system and said this was order was not acceptable. 

Today, I noticed via ARD news (public TV in Germany, Channel One) that the Administrative Court of Gelsenkirchen spoke up on the act of bringing Sami back, giving a deadline.

They say if the city of Bochum doesn't get the job done by the end of July.....then there's going to be a penalty fee of 10,000 Euro required.

The city of Bochum?  So far, they haven't said much.  I think they are evaluating the situation.  To be honest, if Tunisia won't release him to come back....the discussion of this fee or fine becomes a joke. Could the city refuse to pay?  Maybe.  But the court would appoint someone to go and collect assets to equal 10,000 Euro.  It's possible that a higher court might step in and block this action but it's rare that such things happen.

Angering the public in Bochum?  You have a mixture of pro-asylum folks and anti-asylum folks.  This could aggravate both groups to be vocal. 

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