The saga of Jaber al-Bakr, the 22-year-old Syrian migrant and terror suspect who hanged himself in a Leipzig jail cell last week, is more or less over. But his story does illustrate the complexities, the dangers and dilemmas, of immigration policy here and in Europe. Bakr, who was from Damascus, had been granted asylum status when he entered Germany last year—one of hundreds of thousands of Middle East refugees welcomed by Chancellor Angela Merkel. He had settled in Chemnitz.
It’s not entirely clear why Bakr washed up in Chemnitz—it used to be called Karl-Marx-Stadt when it was part of East Germany—but his activities there almost immediately aroused the suspicion of local authorities. By the time they arrived at his apartment on October 8 to arrest him for suspected terrorist activities, however, he was nowhere to be found. The suspicions were fully justified, incidentally: Not only had Bakr been researching bombs on the Internet, but a large quantity of TATP, a homemade explosive used in last year’s bombings in Paris and Brussels, was found in his flat as well.
As it happens, Bakr fled north to Leipzig, where other Syrians have congregated, and he asked three fellow migrants to crash in their apartment. The trio of Syrians didn’t know Bakr, but, as soon as news reports were broadcast about the raid on his Chemnitz flat, they recognized their new roommate, subdued him, tied him up, and called the police.
This is one of those instances where a potential catastrophe—32 innocent people were killed by bombs last March in Brussels—was averted by official vigilance and smart police work. But it is equally true that Bakr might never have been caught, or might never have aroused the suspicions of the Chemnitz authorities, without the critical assistance of other Syrian migrants.
It is tempting, and to a large degree sensible, to worry about the nature of the Middle East migrants now flooding across Europe and the Atlantic. But as the case of the late Jaber al-Bakr and his Leipzig roommates shows, it is also useful to remember that sometimes a “refugee” really is a refugee.
