Iraq has turned over Ali Bashar, 20, to Germany, where he was wanted in the murder of 14-year-old Suzanne Feldman.

German Interior Minister Horst Zoehrer said Bashar had been flown to Germany to stand trial. Bashar emigrated to Germany about 3 years ago, and after the murder he and his parents and brother fled to his homeland, Iraq, but there he was arrested.

Bashar was arrested a day after the body of 14-year-old Feldman was found in the bushes in Wiesbaden, Germany. He admitted that he strangled her to death, but claimed that he did not murder her for nationalist reasons.

“Bashar claims that he and Feldman were friends, but they got into an argument and he murdered her when she threatened that she would call the police,” said Tarek Ahmed, the chief of the Dukhuk district police in northern Iraq.

Feldman, whose family lives in Mainz, Germany, disappeared two weeks ago, and last week her body was found buried in the bushes of the city of Wiesbaden.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)