Germany spends Sh15 million to fly home two deported Kenyans in private jet
Germany immigration last week splashed Sh15.6 million (€137,000) to deport two Kenyans using a charted jet.
Early Thursday morning, a Bavarian police car drove into the Berlin-Schönefeld airport carrying 48-year-old Kenyan man ready for deportation.
DEPORTATION
On board of the chartered “Bombardier Global Express” private jet, was another Kenyan man also being deported by the state of Baden-Wurttemberg after his asylum application was rejected with no possibility of appealing the decision.
The news of the amount of money spent in the deportation of the two Kenyans however did not go down well with Germans after it was feature on ARD’s magazine Report München.
According to Mkenya Ujerumani, a local blog about Kenyans in Germany, the case has caused outrage, not because of the deportation, but because of the cost of it.
The quoted expenditure did not include that of the 14 person team which escorted the two men.
The uneventful exercise took less than 36 hours to deliver the two men to Nairobi and have the team return to Berlin.
EXTRAVAGANCE
In addition to the flight crew, there were nine federal police officers, a medical doctor, a paramedic and a representative of the border protection agency Frontex – as neutral observer to document whether or not the officials followed proper deportation procedure.
However, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, the states that chartered the private jet, have attempted to explain the extravagance.
They said a commercial flight was out of question because the two had been issued with emergency travel documents by the Kenyan government that were only valid for 3 days.
“Finding seats for the two and the 10 plus escort team and the risk of the flight being grounded if the two men resisted the exercise, ruled out a commercial flight in such a short time period,” an expert explained on Report München.
The officials also claimed the two had been labelled dangerous delinquents.
ASSAULT CHARGES
However, no evidence was put forward to support the claim in regards to the man from Baden-Württemberg.
The unnamed 48-year-old has been living in Germany for the past 20 years and has had several encounters with the police in Bavaria.
After his last encounter, the Bavarian State Office for Asylum and Repatriation (Bayerische Landesamt für Asyl und Rückführung) ordered for immediate deportation after serving his sentence.
Among the charges levelled against him included, assault, theft, insult and obstruction of law enforcement.
In the last incident, he was charged with attempted murder, after he reportedly beat up the victim so badly that the victim lost 80 percent of his sight and has had to undergo three surgeries.