A 20-year-old Afghan man who was wrongfully deported will return to Germany in the comings days, Der Spiegel reports.

An Afghan man wrongfully deported from Germany will return to the European country in the coming days so that a court can hear his appeal of a rejection of his asylum application, according to Der Spiegel magazine.

The German publication reported on Friday that the 20-year-old man identified only as Nasibullah S would make the journey back soon.

Nasibullah S was flown to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, last month. But just over a week later the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) admitted the deportation had been wrongful and that “necessary steps” would be taken to return him for a court hearing.

He had arrived in Germany in 2015 and had his asylum claim rejected in April last year.

After being sent back to Afghanistan, it emerged he was still in the process of appealing the decision and had been due to appear in court the week after his deportation.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer admitted the mistake, saying there had “evidently been an administrative error by the BAMF authorities”.

Nasibullah S was one of 69 Afghans who were deported on the 69th birthday of the Bavarian politician, who has recently battled Chancellor Angela Merkel over immigration policy.

Seehofer came under fire for joking about the numerical coincidence which he said was “something he did not order” while presenting his “master plan” for migration.

A day after Seehofer apparently made light of the deportations, it was announced one of the 69 flown to Afghanistan, a 23-year-old man, had committed suicide at a hotel in Kabul.

Political crisis

In June, a dispute over immigration between Seehofer and Merkel nearly brought an end to the chancellor’s 13-year-long rule.

As part of his 63-point immigration master plan, Seehofer wanted to start turning away migrants at the German border who had already registered elsewhere in the European Union – a policy Merkel had explicitly disagreed with.

The political crisis was dispelled when the leaders reached a compromise through which migrants who had arrived elsewhere in the EU would temporarily be housed in transit centres within Germany where their status would be reviewed and from where they would be returned to countries they were in earlier.

The first seven such centres were opened on Wednesday.