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Austria Arrests ‘Butcher Of Pakistan,’ Migrant Suspected Of 70 Murders

REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh

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Jacob Bojesson Foreign Correspondent
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Austrian and Hungarian police have detained a Pakistani migrant suspected of killing around 70 people in his home country, authorities confirmed Wednesday.

The man attempted to enter Hungary with a large group of migrants along Hungary’s southern border, Reuters reports. Authorities received a tip that the man was heading for Austria and authorities from both countries cooperated to arrest the suspect, identified only by his initials A.Z.

Austrian police described the man as “the butcher of Pakistan” for his work as a hitman. He allegedly turned his focus to people smuggling in Europe to make money in recent years.

“This case shows once again the importance of international networking in combating crime,” Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said, according to Heute. “I can only congratulate the Austrian investigators on this success.”

Countries have struggled to single out criminals among genuine refugees. Some have even confessed involvement in serious crimes, including murder, in their home countries to avoid deportation.

“Primarily male” persons from Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Libya are confessing to murders as a last resort in Germany. People from these countries have slim chances of being granted protection in Germany unless they risk torture or the death penalty upon returning home.

“The number of these investigations has increased significantly,” Nadja Nielsen, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office in the city of Frankfurt, told Austrian daily OE24 in May. “Since November we have been carrying out more than 60 procedures in which an asylum seeker has committed a criminal offense in his home country, forcing us to investigate.”

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