An Iraqi asylum seeker has confessed to murdering a 14-year-old girl but says they had consensual sex, in a case which has rocked
Germany.
Ali Bashar, 22, fled to northern
Iraq after the death of Susanna Maria Feldman in May 2018 in Wiesbaden, but was captured and brought back.
'My vision went black and then it happened,' Bashar told the court today through an interpreter. 'I don't know how it could have happened.'
His trial for the rape and murder of Ms Feldman started on Monday under tight security in Wiesbaden.
Around a dozen people held a vigil for the victim outside the courthouse.
For the murder alone, Bashar faces a likely life prison term, which in Germany usually translates to 15 years behind bars.
He denied rape and claimed in court that the two had consensual sex before she fell, got angry and threatened to call the police.
To Germany's far right, Bashar, who is also accused of twice raping an 11-year-old girl in a separate case, has become a symbol of the threat allegedly posed by a wave of mostly Middle Eastern newcomers.