The officials added that the teen asylum-seeker was identified as a suspect based on traffic video from near the crime scene. (Photo: Representational Image)

Kabul: A teenage Afghan refugee has reportedly been arrested in Germany over alleged rape and murder of a university student.

According to officials, the 17-year-old asylum seeker was taken into custody on suspicion that he raped and killed a 19-year-old university student, reports the Khaama Press.

The officials added that the teen asylum-seeker was identified as a suspect based on traffic video from near the crime scene.

Prosecutor Dieter Inhofer said that DNA evidence has tied the boy to the crime scene. He was living in the area with a family.

According to officials, the victim vanished on her way home from a party on October 16 and her body was found in a river later that day.

This comes as a 22-year-old Afghan man seeking asylum in Germany has allegedly raped a four-year-old Iraqi boy at an asylum center in the town of Boostedt in the northern Schleswig-Holstein state. </s> A 17-year-old migrant has been arrested on suspicion of the rape and murder of a senior EU official’s daughter in Germany.

The teenager, an Afghan who arrived in the country last year as an unaccompanied minor, was detained by police on Friday.

Maria Ladenburger, a 19-year-old medical student, was allegedly raped and killed shortly after leaving a student party in Freiburg, southern Germany on October 16.

She was the daughter of Dr Clemens Ladenburger, who has been an assistant to the head of the European Commission’s legal wing since 2008.

Ms Ladenburger, a Freiburg University student, was last seen cycling home from the party and her body was found in the River Dreisam the next day.

She had volunteered as a helper at a refugee centre but it was not known if she met her alleged killer there.

Police identified the suspect from hair and a black scarf found at the murder scene. The Afghan teenager was spotted by officers on CCTV riding the Freiburg transport system with a partially-dyed ponytail and a black scarf on the night Ms Ladenburger disappeared.

German media reported that he had confessed to the killing and will stand trial next year.

Mr Ladenburger and his wife Frederika placed a memorial notice for Maria in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, writing: "Maria was for 19 years a singular ray of sunshine for our family, and that she will remain.

“We thank God for this gift, that he made you with us. We are sure that she is safe with him." </s> BERLIN — A rejected Iraqi asylum-seeker accused of murdering and raping a 14-year-old local girl has gone on trial in Germany, in a case that fueled tensions over migration.

The 22-year-old Ali Bashar is accused of assaulting and killing Susanna Feldman in the western city of Wiesbaden in May. Bashar and his family abruptly left a home for asylum applicants in Germany after the killing, and he was later extradited from Iraq.

Bashar’s trial opened at the state court in Wiesbaden on Tuesday and is scheduled to last at least until early May.

He is believed to have arrived in Germany in October 2015, at the height of the migrant influx to the country, and was appealing the rejection of his asylum application at the time of the killing. </s> The German government says a young Iraqi man suspected in the rape and murder of a 14-year-old schoolgirl in western Germany has been arrested in his homeland.

The Interior Ministry said 20-year-old Ali Bashar was arrested by Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq early Friday at the request of German police.

The girl disappeared on May 22 and her body was found Wednesday in Wiesbaden. Authorities then said that Bashar had left with his family abruptly last week, traveling to northern Iraq via Turkey.

Bashar arrived in Germany in 2015, at the height of the influx of refugees and other migrants. He was appealing the rejection of his asylum application, and police said he was suspected in a string of previous offenses in the same area. </s> The accused, who is known as Ali B. under German law, left Germany for northern Iraq shortly after the May 2018 crime but was brought back in a mission joined personally by federal police chief Dieter Romann.

SEE ALSO: Iraqi charged with rape, murder in Germany's 'Susanna' case

The 22-year-old's trial for the rape-murder of 14-year-old schoolgirl Susanna F. started under tight security at 9.30am in the city of Wiesbaden, Hesse, where the crime took place.

Around a dozen people held a vigil for the victim outside the courthouse.

The suspect has admitted the killing to police interrogators but denied the rape, meaning he already faces a likely life prison term, which in Germany usually translates to 15 years behind bars.

To Germany's far right, the alleged killer, who is also accused of raping an 11-year-old girl in a separate case, has become a symbol of the threat allegedly posed by the wave of newcomers.

Before the trial, the anti-Islam Alternative for Germany (AfD) party again blamed Chancellor Angela Merkel and her grand coalition or "GroKo" government for Susanna's death.

"The problem isn't 'the right' but the knife-man immigration caused by the GroKo that has caused ever more bloody crimes," the party wrote in a Facebook post.

The AfD became the biggest opposition party when it entered parliament in late 2017, riding a wave of public anger over sexual assaults and other violent crimes committed by some recent migrants.

In another case last year, the fatal stabbing of a German man in the eastern city of Chemnitz, allegedly by immigrants, sparked outbursts of mob violence in which far-right extremists hunted people of foreign appearance through the streets.

SEE ALSO: Refugees still welcome? How one girl's murder is dividing Germany

B., along with his parents and five siblings, first arrived in Germany in 2015, the year that saw the peak of the migrant influx which would bring more than one million people to Europe's top economy.

His request for asylum was rejected in December 2016, but -- in a case critics label as symptomatic of an overwhelmed and dysfunctional system -- he obtained a temporary residence permit pending his appeal.

Merkel later conceded in a TV interview that "the case shows how important it is that people who don't have residency rights quickly face a court and can be speedily sent back home".

In May last year, B. allegedly beat, raped and strangled Susanna to death in a wooded area near his refugee shelter in Wiesbaden.

Her body was then buried in a shallow grave covered with leaves, twigs and soil.

When her remains were found two weeks later, B. and his family had left Germany for Arbil, northern Iraq.

However following a public outcry, he was arrested by Kurdish security forces and German federal police hauled the suspect back from Iraq.

Despite the absence of a formal extradition treaty between Iraq and Germany, B. was put on a flight to Germany, with pictures of him disembarking under heavy police guard making front pages.

B. also faces charges for a park robbery in which he allegedly beat, strangled and threatened a man with a knife to steal his watch, bag, phone and bank card.

He faces a separate trial from March 19, accused of having twice raped an 11-year-old girl -- once in April 2018 after locking her in his room, and again near a supermarket car park the following month.

Prosecutors have also laid charges against an Afghan youth who was living in the same refugee shelter, Mansoor Q., who was believed to be aged at least 14 at the time, for also raping the 11-year-old girl.

And prosecutors have said B.'s younger brother -- who is believed to be in Iraq, according to media reports -- also took part in a violent sexual assault against the younger girl.
German police arrested a 17-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan in the rape and murder case of Maria L. in Freiburg while a similar case nearby is still under investigation.