First picture of Afghan refugee, 17, accused of raping and murdering medical student who volunteered to help migrants – and posted chilling ‘wolfman’ image online
Hussein K has been linked by his DNA to the murder of Maria Ladenburger, 19
THIS is the face of the refugee teenager accused of raping and murdering a medical student who spent her free time helping migrants.
Hussein K, 17, posted the photo just seven days before he allegedly ended the life of Maria Ladenburger, 19, whose father is a senior legal adviser to the European Commission in Brussels.
The crime has polarised Germany, a nation with over a million refugees in its midst.
Maria worked in her spare time in the ancient university city of Freiburg helping out the migrants in various shelters and homes and her family asked for people to donate money to charities - including those which work with migrants - in an obituary notice.
In October, as she cycled home after a party, she was ambushed, raped and then drowned in a river.
The arrest has sparked frenzied new waves of hatred and fear of refugees. Even the boss of the country's police union said her death would have been prevented had the open door asylum-seeker policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel been less lax.
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The October 16 killing is the biggest jolt to Merkel's plans for integration since the frenzied sexual assaults of New Year's Eve in Cologne when mobs of immigrant men sexually molested and robbed hundreds of women.
The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been quick to use Hussein K.'s arrest to highlight what it says are the dangers of unregulated immigration.
It calls Maria a "victim of Merkel's welcome culture."
Hussein, who police say has been linked by his DNA to the crime, was born in Ghazni in Afghanistan and came to Germany as an illegal unaccompanied minor in November 2015.
In numerous social media posts he liked to present himself in the guise of a gangsta rapper: hair slicked back with gel, jogging pants and training shoes.
A single strand of his hair was found at the crime scene but he left other traces of his DNA behind too, it has been reported.
He posted a picture of a wolfman clutching a young maiden - by Tokyo-based artist Ryohei Hase, who has no connection with the suspect or the trial - in his arms on his Facebook page in June.
Detectives on the 60-strong murder squad are still probing the possibility that he knew Maria through her work with refugees.
At the time of her murder Hussein K. was still 16. Her body was found in the Dreisam River less than one mile from the student accommodation where she lived.
Intensive scrutiny of CCTV cameras in the town coupled with the DNA evidence at the scene led to his arrest on Friday last week.
The prosecutor said: "He has remained silent. He has demanded a lawyer before he says he will say anything."