Helicopter, patrols… a Moroccan man escapes and reappears 400 km away

The transfer was supposed to be a simple step before his removal from Germany. It turned into a flight spanning several hundred kilometers across the country.

On August 26, a 26-year-old Moroccan man was under the supervision of German police officers who were taking him to the Hof detention center in Bavaria. The convoy had left Frankfurt and was traveling north on the B505 federal highway.

At around 6:20 p.m., the police officers made a brief stop at a rest area near Kottmannsdorf, in the Bamberg district. The young man took advantage of the stop to escape.

He ran toward Rothensand and Kleinbuchfeld, reports the Frankenpost.

A major search operation was immediately launched. Several patrols were deployed, and a police helicopter flew over the area.

The authorities even asked the public not to try to intercept the fugitive themselves and advised motorists not to pick up hitchhikers.

On Bladi.net : article 123219

A few hours later, at around 7:30 p.m., the Moroccan man was spotted at Forchheim station.

Then his trail disappeared.

Found the next day in Cologne

The searches carried out around Bamberg yielded nothing. And for good reason: in the meantime, the young man had managed to leave the region entirely.

The next day, he reappeared in Cologne, in North Rhine-Westphalia.

German federal police officers eventually arrested him at the city’s central station. Between Forchheim, where he had last been seen, and Cologne, there are approximately 386 kilometers by road.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann himself confirmed his arrest.

His journey before this spectacular escape was also unusual.

According to inFranken.de, the Moroccan man had previously been detained in Belgium.

The Belgian authorities had handed him over to Germany on August 26 as part of the European procedure intended to determine which state was responsible for his immigration situation.

Once back on German territory, he had no right of residence. The authorities therefore considered that he had to leave the country and had notified him of his removal to Morocco.

The escape ultimately only changed the place from which his departure would be organized.

According to new information published on September 2 by the Frankenpost, the authorities decided to keep him in North Rhine-Westphalia after his arrest in Cologne.

He is currently being held in a detention center in that state.

On Bladi.net : article 123346

The Upper Franconia administration mainly confirmed that he must now be deported directly from North Rhine-Westphalia to his country of origin.

The escape on August 26 thus lasted less than twenty-four hours. But after evading the police at a Bavarian rest area, the Moroccan man managed to reach Cologne nearly 400 kilometers away despite the extensive search operation launched to find him.