Police have found out evidence suggesting that Mohammad A., who is on trial for the murder of an 87-year-old in the German state of Thuringia, could have misled the German migration authorities about being from Afghanistan. This might have allowed him to stay in Europe even though his asylum application had been denied.

A police investigation into the killing of an 87-year-old pensioner from Jena in January 2019 has concluded that her alleged murderer’s claim about coming from Afghanistan, which made him safe from deportation, is extremely questionable. According to the bombshell allegations, the man could have migrated from Pakistan, in fact.

Mohammad A. entered Germany in the summer of 2011 without papers and claimed to be from Afghanistan, Focus magazine reports. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) rejected his asylum application as an "unaccompanied minor refugee", but he was allowed to stay as deportations to the war-torn country were on hold. There are no such limitations for Pakistan, however.

The district court in Gera heard Jena Criminal Superintendent Jens Thiel’s testimony on the matter during the trial of Mohammad A., who is accused of brutally murdering his 87-year-old neighbour Ursula P. on 10 January 2019 and hiding her in a suitcase out of mercenary motives. Thiel even examined the defendant’s mobile phone that was locked when confiscated but later cracked by specialists of the Federal Criminal Police Office, and analysed the data on it for about a month.

Asked about "abnormalities", the investigator reportedly pointed at several WhatsApp messages.

"The evidence was in Arabic and translated by two interpreters”, said the policeman, noting both agreed that Mohammad A. "does not come from Afghanistan but from Pakistan" as his dialect and full name, which was atypical for Afghanistan, raised doubts about his “legend”.

Thiel, who is a digital forensic scientist himself, also came across inconsistencies. The suspect, for example, stored about 50 Pakistani numbers in his telephone and Facebook contacts but no Afghani ones. He actively communicated with someone named "Hajji" from Pakistan, especially in January 2019, the time the elderly woman was murdered. Besides this, the person he marked as “Mama” on his contact list also lives in Pakistan.

The investigator also noted that the migrant’s statements in Bamf should be treated with caution because he registered himself there in 2011 under another name ("Auwel Nom Lakab") and allegedly lied about his date of birth, saying it was 1 January 1 1995.

Apart from the indications about his misleading the German authorities, evidence against him related to the murder was discovered as well. For instance, he had a picture of the victim’s debit card and identity card as well as her account statement with a credit of about 10,000 euros that he sent to his Pakistani chat partner "Hajji". The motives for the murder remain unclear.

Following the murder, Mohammad A. filled out forms on the internet, using the personal details of Ursula P. His browser history also included terms like "robber killer", "death penalty in Germany", and "duration of detention" apart from visiting sports betting providers, porn sites, and searching for prostitutes in Jena.