An Afghani migrant charged with the rape and murder of a German medical student also allegedly raped a young girl in his native country, local media reports.
Hussein Khavari is currently standing trial in the south-western German university city of Freiburg over the death of 19-year-old Maria Ladenburger last October.
It has now emerged that Khavari might have carried out a similar attack in his native Afghanistan, raping a 12-year-old girl.
Afghan migrant Hussein Khavari wept in the Freiburg District Court as he recalled how he murdered Maria Ladenburger while he was drunk last October
While Khavari was locked up in investigative custody, he allegedly told a fellow prisoner that he carried out the rape in Afghanistan when he was just 14.
A Freiburg police officer confirmed the story to the district court during Khavari’s trial, where he has admitted to killing Ms Ladenburger, whose father is a senior legal adviser to the European Commission in Brussels.
According to the police, the parents of Khavari made a settlement with the parents of the raped girl to keep the incident unreported.
It has also emerged that Khavari had been arrested and sentenced to ten years for attempted murder in Corfu in 2013 before coming to Germany seeking refuge in 2015.
Khavari threw a 20-year-old student 25 feet down a cliff on the island of Corfu in May 2013. The woman was severely injured but miraculously survived the ordeal.
Hussein Khavari (left), 22, has been charged with raping and murdering Maria Ladenburger (right), 19, in Germany
Police stand in front of the court in Freiburg ahead of a case that fueled a nationwide debate about the country’s migration policy
Khavari did not report to parole officers after his early release from the Greek detention centre and authorities issued a search warrant for the Afghan migrant, but only in their own country.
German authorities criticised the Greeks for “negligence”, claiming that if they had known about Khavari’s past, he would have been flagged when he applied for asylum and not allowed into the country, which in turn could have prevented the grisly rape and murder of Ms Ladenburger.
Yesterday, Khavari broke down and asked for forgiveness at his trial in Freiburg District Court, Germany.
Khavari wept as he recalled how he smoked hashish the night he ambushed 19-year-old, admitting that he raped her and drowned her in the knee-deep water of a nearby river.
He said he took her to the water to wash her blood from his body and clothes and claimed the incident had destroyed his life.
He broke down in court and added: ‘I want to apologize to the family of Maria’.
Reading from a statement he went on: ‘I beg your pardon. I want to apologise to the family of Maria. I wish I could undo it. What I have done, I am sad for from the bottom of my heart ‘.
He says he dreams of what he did every day as he wiped tears from his face.
‘I live with the agony of what I did and this torment destroys my life,’ he added.
He was linked through his DNA to medical student Maria (pictured), who volunteered at various shelters that house migrants in her spare time in the university city of Freiburg
He claims he dragged her into the river ‘because I wanted to wash her blood from me’.
Prosecutors dispute his account of the murder and say he planned it beforehand.
Khavari was born in Ghazni in Afghanistan and claimed to have been 16 when he arrived in Germany in 2015, because ‘because the situation is better here for under age migrants.’
Ms Ladenburger, who was studying medicine at university, would helping out migrants in various shelters and homes in her spare time.
Her body was found in the Dreisam River in October 2016, less than one mile from the student accommodation where she lived.
The killing sparked frenzied new waves of hatred and fear of refugees.
Even the leader of the country’s police union said her death would have been prevented had the open door asylum-seeker policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel been less lax than it is.
The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was to piggyback on the killer’s arrest to highlight what it says are the dangers of unregulated immigration. It calls Maria a ‘victim of Merkel’s welcome culture.’
Sixteen days of hearings have been scheduled for the trial, with a verdict expected in December at the earliest.
The case continues.