Germany: Kaplan arrested after premature deportation to Turkey
01 November 2004
On 12 October, the self-proclaimed "Caliph" and Islamic fundamentalist, Metin Kaplan, was deported to Turkey after years of legal battle. On his arrival in Istanbul, he was arrested by Turkish authorities and is awaiting trial on grounds of treason. Kaplan was the leader of a banned organisation, the "Caliph State", and although the organisation is clearly anti-democratic, Kaplan has not committed a criminal act which would justify his deportation. Even when he was jailed in November 2000 for four years, for incitement to murder, the prosecution was unable to provide hard evidence against him. He had made the demand that "if a second caliph rises, he should be beheaded", and one year later a religious rival was shot dead by unknown people.
Kaplan was released in May 2003. Initial attempts to deport him to Turkey failed when the Cologne administrative court ruled in August 2003 that there was a possibility that Turkey, which had lodged an extradition request on the grounds of treason, could force him to give statements under duress. Several appeal procedures were initiated but the decisive judgement was made by the Cologne administrative court when it decided on 12 October that Kaplan could be deported despite an outstanding appeals procedure with the Federal Administrative Court.
Lawyers and civil liberties organisations argued that the appeals procedure should imply a safeguard from deportation. The court is deciding on paragraph 35/1 of the Aliens Act, which holds that "a foreigner cannot be deported to a state in which there is a concrete danger that this foreigner be subjected to torture". However, if an accelerated deportation order is granted priority in the courts, the foreigner in question can be deported before the decision on the substantive procedure is made. In Kaplan's case though, even this accelerated procedure had not come to an end before he was deported in a private jet to Turkey at the cost of around 26,000 euro. The government argued that he was a "representative figure for Islamic fundamentalism", which justified his "immediate removal".
The deportation of non-Germans despite outstanding legal procedures has its precedent in a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1996, which held that an asylum seeker could be deported before the asylum application or appeal procedures were decided, with the argument that they could always return if the procedure was successful. This was the start of the erosion of democratic principles with regard to non-Germans. The accusation of Muslim "fundamentalism" or "terrorism" can overrule legal procedures and defence rights. In practice, many more deportations are taking place without guarantees, such as the one Turkey gave the German authorities, that the deportee will not be subjected to torture or an unfair trial.
Süddeutsche Zeitung 14.10; Migration & Bevölkerung issue 8 (November) 2004