A new trend amongst asylum seekers in Germany is to confess to murder, whether guilty or not, to avoid deportation to their native countries where they may face the death penalty.

In the German region of Hesse, the number of asylum applications is increasing by the day. Last year, the area saw around 25,000 migrants apply for asylum and many were rejected, with migrants developing a range of dishonest schemes in the attempt to obtain a positive asylum application – including confessing to murder, OE24 reports.

According to reports, the number of asylum seekers confessing to murder in order to avoid deportation, even if they did not commit any crimes, is rising. Many asylum seekers in Germany from Africa or Central Asia may not automatically be approved for asylum, but their countries still have the death penalty.

Due to European Union human rights legislation, member states are unable to deport migrants to countries where they may face the death penalty which means they are often granted asylum status.

State attorney Nadja Niesen said: “The number of these investigations has increased significantly. Since November we have been carrying out more than 60 procedures in which an asylum seeker has committed a criminal offence in his home country, forcing us to investigate.”

Under German law, authorities are forced to investigate all claims – but they cannot cooperate with the asylum seeker’s country of origin in case they give away the migrant’s location. So often, with no evidence but a confession, the authorities are forced to grant asylum status.

More and more asylum seekers are also converting from Islam to Christianity, which some have slammed as another scheme to avoid deportation as their home countries may kill them for leaving Islam (apostasy).

Muslim migrants from Syria living in Lebanon told British media they had converted before coming to Europe because they thought it would aid them in the asylum process.

Iran is one country which enacts the death penalty for apostasy and many Iranians in Germany have been converting in large numbers, as well. “A massive amount of Iranians convert,” said a pastor in the city of Heidelburg.

A large portion of the asylum seekers in Germany also come from states in North Africa and the acceptance rate for their asylum applications is very low as many are considered “safe” countries. In 2016, 8,363 asylum seekers from the region were rejected for asylum status, yet only 368 were actually deported.

If the confessions of murder are taken at face value by German authorities, the already growing trend of migrant crime in Germany is likely to skew the statistics that already show an increase in migrant criminality.