The 32-year-old Syrian criminal had repeatedly come into contact with the law and was convicted in 2020 of drug offenses and assault, reported the German press agency dpa.

A spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry confirmed the deportation on Wednesday (January 7) via the German tabloid newspaper Bild. The spokesperson said the man was deported on a "scheduled flight" and had been convicted "several times of violent and drug-related offenses."

According to dpa, the man had been serving his sentence at Burg prison in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt and was taken directly from prison to the airport. The flight took off on Tuesday (January 6), reported dpa.

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More deportations to follow, promises government

The German government, under conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pledged to deport more convicted criminals from Syria and Afghanistan back to their home countries. A first deportation of Syrian convict took place shortly before Christmas.

In that case, the deported man had been convicted of aggravated robbery, assault and extortion and had been living in the western German city Gelsenkirchen.

The Interior Minister for Saxony-Anhalt, Tamara Zieschang from the conservative CDU party, thanked Germany’s Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt from the conservative sister party CSU for a "making sure the operational capabilities are in place to be able to deport convicted Syrian criminals back to their home country," reported Germany’s financial Handelsblatt newspaper.

Dobrindt told Bild newspaper that his government is determined to "deport all criminals, even those from Syria and Afghanistan. Anyone who commits crimes in Germany should not be allowed to stay here. It is in the interests of German society that criminals are deported."

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CSU calls for tougher migration policy for 2026

At the beginning of January this year, the CSU part of the conservative coalition, called for an even stricter migration policy in 2026. They said not just criminals, but the majority of Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in Germany should be encouraged to return home as quickly as possible.

The CSU said that the majority of Syrians who had been granted protection status in Germany now had no real grounds to continue needing that protection, since the reason for the protection, the Assad regime, was no longer in power and the civil war had ended.

In parliament, the CSU group launching the proposal said: "For those who don’t return voluntarily to their country, as speedy as possible, deportations need to be set up."

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