Germany

What has happened

The United Nations Committee against Torture has found Germany in violation of article 3 of the Convention. A German court has described a completed deportation as manifestly unlawful and unconstitutional, carried out while a torture-based prohibition on removal was legally in force. Since 2023 four Tajik opposition activists deported from Germany have been detained on arrival, three of them since sentenced to long prison terms.

The finding against Germany

In Abichou v. Germany the Committee against Torture considered the case of Onsi Abichou, a Tunisian national extradited by Germany to Tunisia. The complaint was brought by his wife. The Committee concluded:

“The Committee against Torture, acting under article 22, paragraph 7, of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, is of the view that the information before it discloses a violation by the State party of article 3 of the Convention.”

It urged Germany “to provide redress to Onsi Abichou, including adequate compensation.”

Communication No. 430/2010, CAT/C/50/D/430/2010, decision of 21 May 2013.

The deportation of Sami A.

German courts and German media identify him as Sami A. The Committee against Torture names him in full, as Sami Aidoudi. He was deported to Tunisia on 13 July 2018.

The day before, the Administrative Court of Gelsenkirchen had restored the suspensive effect of his action against the revocation of his protection, so the prohibition on deporting him under the Residence Act, section 60(2) in the version then in force, remained legally in force. The Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia later established the timing: the court order reached the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees at 08:14, and he was handed to the Tunisian authorities at 09:14, “exactly one hour after the court decision was communicated to the Federal Office.”

On the day of the removal the Administrative Court found that in Tunisia, absent a binding individual assurance, he faced:

“die Gefahr der Folter und der unmenschlichen oder erniedrigenden Behandlung mit beachtlicher Wahrscheinlichkeit”

the risk of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment with significant probability.

Verwaltungsgericht Gelsenkirchen, 13 July 2018, 8 L 1315/18, marginal no. 7.

The Higher Administrative Court held on 15 August 2018 that “the deportation of the applicant carried out on 13 July 2018 was manifestly unlawful,” and dismissed the city authority appeal against the order to bring him back. On the ministry having withheld the flight details from the court, it said that the assumption behind this “is not compatible with the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers,” and that the court decision arriving in time at all “is owed to chance.”

Oberverwaltungsgericht Nordrhein-Westfalen, 15 August 2018, 17 B 1029/18.

On 19 December 2018 the Administrative Court lifted the obligation to bring him back, because a diplomatic assurance from Tunisia had by then been accepted as reducing the risk below the threshold. In the same decision it recorded that the deportation itself remained:

“evident rechts- und verfassungswidrig”

manifestly unlawful and unconstitutional.

Verwaltungsgericht Gelsenkirchen, 19 December 2018, 8 L 2184/18, marginal nos. 7 and 11. The assurance relied on was a note verbale of the Tunisian Embassy in Berlin dated 29 October 2018, accepted in Verwaltungsgericht Gelsenkirchen, 21 November 2018, 7a L 1947/18.A.

He was never brought back. The Higher Administrative Court refused leave to appeal on 19 January 2021.

What the Committee against Torture said about it

Reviewing Germany in 2019, the Committee recorded that it was “concerned at reports alleging that the State party has acted in breach of the principle of non-refoulement in a few cases during the period under review,” and then named this case:

“The State party deported an asylum seeker, Sami Aidoudi, to his country of origin before a court order staying the deportation was issued. The Committee is seriously concerned that, despite a subsequent legal order calling for his return based on the deportation being unlawful, the State party has not taken measures to retrieve him.”

CAT/C/DEU/CO/6, adopted 14 May 2019, issued 11 July 2019, paragraph 25 and 25(c). The German court record establishes that the stay order had been issued and served an hour before the handover, which is more precise than the Committee formulation.

In the same observations the Committee addressed the practice Germany later relied on to close the Sami A. case:

“The Committee reiterates its concern … that the State party continues to carry out extradition and deportation on the basis of diplomatic assurances provided by the country of origin, as those assurances may not guarantee that the individual would not be subjected to torture and ill-treatment if returned.”

“The State party should refrain from seeking and accepting diplomatic assurances, both in the context of extradition and deportation, from States where there are any grounds for believing that a person would be at risk of torture or ill-treatment upon return.”

Paragraphs 23 and 24.

Four removals to Tajikistan

This section rests on reporting by Human Rights Watch and other named organisations. No court and no United Nations body has made a finding against Germany in any of these cases.

Abdullohi Shamsiddin, deported 18 January 2023, detained on arrival by the security services, convicted on 29 March 2023 and sentenced to seven years. Human Rights Watch reports that after his detention he “was held for over two months in a darkened isolation cell and has been mistreated, according to family members,” that “he has lost weight and has been denied medical care,” and that when a German embassy official visited, eight prison guards were present. His father is a senior member of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party and a refugee in Germany.
Bilol Qurbonaliev, deported in November 2023, detained and later sentenced to ten years.
Dilmurod Ergashev, deported from Duesseldorf on 6 November 2024 and handed to the Tajik authorities at Dushanbe airport by German Federal Police officers on 7 November. Witnesses told the media that he was immediately handcuffed and a black bag placed over his head. A Dushanbe court ordered his detention on 8 November. He was sentenced in February 2025 to eight years, after a trial held behind closed doors.
Asadullo Boboev, deported with his adult son on 20 June 2026. Boboev was placed in pretrial detention immediately on arrival; his son was released to his grandmother. Human Rights Watch describes him as “the fourth documented case of a Tajik opposition activist deported from Germany since 2023 who has been detained on arrival.” No sentence has been reported.

Human Rights Watch also reports that Tajik authorities questioned dozens of Shamsiddin friends and relatives “based on contacts the Tajik authorities retrieved from Shamsiddin mobile phone, a device they obtained because German police officials gave it to them.” Freedom For Eurasia, which obtained the Tajik judgment, found the phone recorded as material evidence, forensically examined, and ordered destroyed after the verdict. No German official acknowledgement of the handover has been published.

Human Rights Watch has called on Germany to investigate each of these removals and says Germany “is failing to uphold its international obligations to protect those in danger of mistreatment.”

Afghanistan

Germany resumed deportations to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan on 30 August 2024 with a flight carrying 28 men, all with criminal convictions, brokered through Qatar. A second flight carried 81 men on 18 July 2025. The first direct flight to Kabul carried 20 people on 25 February 2026. Since July 2026 the policy is no longer limited to people with convictions.

Amnesty International records, of 2025: “Germany deported 83 individuals to Afghanistan and one person to Syria, violating the principle of non-refoulement.” The figure is Amnesty own; the July 2025 flight carried 81, and 83 corresponds to the German interior ministry total for the year.

Amnesty International Report 2025/26, POL 10/0320/2026, Germany entry.

The German Federal Foreign Office own country assessment records reports of torture in Afghan prisons of journalists, women rights activists, demonstrators and former security personnel, and records that corporal punishment including public flogging was reintroduced in November 2022 and applied repeatedly and nationwide.

What runs the other way

German courts refused the applications in the Tajik cases. The Administrative Court of Duesseldorf dismissed Ergashev emergency application on the morning of his removal, accepting the Federal Office reasoning that his opposition activities were not intensive enough to make persecution in Tajikistan probable.

The protection mechanisms have also worked. In Z.A. and others v. Germany the Committee discontinued proceedings in November 2024 after Germany granted the complainants refugee status and residence permits. In H.D. v. Germany the Committee held interim measures from February 2022 asking Germany not to deport the complainant to Turkiye and refused Germany request to lift them in May 2025, though it ultimately declared the complaint inadmissible for failure to exhaust domestic remedies rather than deciding the merits.

CAT/C/81/D/1138/2022, 1 November 2024. CAT/C/83/D/1121/2022, 14 November 2025.

German law contains no criminality exception to the torture bar. The exclusions in section 60(8) of the Residence Act operate only against the refugee prohibition in subsection (1), and subsection (9) states expressly that “Subsections (2) to (7) remain unaffected.” The prohibition on removal where a person faces torture or inhuman or degrading treatment, and the prohibition on removal where the European Convention on Human Rights forbids it, survive any conviction.

What is not established

No court and no United Nations body has found against Germany in any of the four Tajik removals. The record there is reporting by named organisations, not adjudication.
No German authority has publicly acknowledged handing Shamsiddin telephone to the Tajik authorities.
No sentence has been reported for Asadullo Boboev.
Germany has not been reviewed by the Committee against Torture since 2019. Its seventh periodic report was received on 16 July 2024 and issued on 11 February 2025; no new concluding observations have been adopted.
Whether Sami A. remains in Tunisia is not established. What is established is that he was never returned to Germany.

Sources

Committee against Torture, Abichou v. Germany, CAT/C/50/D/430/2010, 21 May 2013.
Committee against Torture, concluding observations on Germany, CAT/C/DEU/CO/6, 2019.
Committee against Torture, CAT/C/81/D/1138/2022 and CAT/C/83/D/1121/2022.
Verwaltungsgericht Gelsenkirchen, 7a L 1200/18.A, 8 L 1315/18, 7a L 1947/18.A and 8 L 2184/18; Oberverwaltungsgericht Nordrhein-Westfalen, 17 B 1029/18, 17 B 47/19 and 1 A 909/19.A. Full texts in the official North Rhine-Westphalia judgments database.
Human Rights Watch reporting of 20 March 2023, 30 January 2024, 20 November 2024 and 7 July 2026, and its World Report 2026 chapter on Tajikistan.
Freedom For Eurasia, analysis of the Tajik judgment, 19 March 2024.
Amnesty International Report 2025/26, POL 10/0320/2026.
Auswaertiges Amt, report on the asylum and deportation relevant situation in Afghanistan, June 2023.
Residence Act, section 60; Regulation (EU) 2024/1347, article 15.