Germany has deported eight Afghan men whose applications for asylum were rejected, sending them back to Afghanistan on September 13.
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Hermann said the men were all convicted criminals and that at least two have been convicted on charges of rape.
Mohammad Asif Abbasi, an Afghan Refugee Ministry representative, said the deportees included at least three criminal offenders.
The expulsions were the first for Germany since it stopped deportation flights to Afghanistan following a bomb attack that partially destroyed the German Embassy in Kabul on May 31.
More than 100 Afghans were killed in that attack, prompting refugee support groups to call for a halt to deportations on security grounds.
German authorities are now limiting their deportations of Afghans to three groups: people suspected of terrorism, convicted criminal offenders, and people who refuse to properly verify their identity.
