Germany deports second Syrian offender since al-Assad's fall

Germany has carried out another deportation of a convicted Syrian criminal to his home country, the second such case since the ousting of former president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

The 32-year-old man had repeatedly come into conflict with the law and was convicted in 2020 of drug offences and assault, receiving a prison sentence of several years, according to information obtained by dpa.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry on Wednesday told the Bild newspaper that "another Syrian criminal was returned to Syria today on a scheduled flight." The man had been convicted several times of violent and drug-related offences, he added.

The man had been serving his sentence at Burg prison in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt and was taken from there to the airport.

The deportation took place on Tuesday afternoon, according to dpa information.

Germany halted direct deportations to Syria after war erupted in 2011 following the violent suppression of pro-democracy protests by the regime of long-time dictator al-Assad.

After al-Assad was ousted by a rebel alliance in December 2024, calls grew in Germany for Syrian refugees to return home. But the then centre-left government cautioned that it was too early to determine whether conditions in Syria were safe.

The conservative-led government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, which took office in May 2025, has since adopted a more hard-line stance on migration, pledging to resume deportations to Syria and Afghanistan starting with convicted criminals.

The first deportation following al-Assad's fall took place shortly before Christmas, when a Syrian man living in the western city of Gelsenkirchen was returned to Syria after being convicted of aggravated robbery, assault and extortion.