[mirimir]

Yeah, that seems odd. But then, I know zero about German law. I suppose that none of the charges against him warrant extradition, so they're cool with him remaining in India. But on the other hand, he has a criminal record, so they don't have to repatriate him.

[Aeolun]

> But on the other hand, he has a criminal record, so they don't have to repatriate him.

This is what seems highly unlikely to me. I wonder what is written on this in the German media.

[Tomte]

A short Google (News) search in German turned up nothing.

[netsharc]

Google just recommends me "Ziebart", which is a more common name, I'm wondering if the reporter misspelled his name.

[maxnoe]

German here fomlowing the German media broadly. This is the first I heard of this story.

[Broken_Hippo]

I'm not convinced that is the case. I'm going to guess they can take away his citizenship if he has citizenship elsewhere. I'm not sure they can refuse a citizen without citizenship elsewhere, though. This would leave the dude stateless - and while a few countries do this to their citizens, I'm nearly certain that Germany is not one of them.

Every other country - the ones where he is a foreigner - can most certainly refuse his entry, though.

[rsynnott]

There’s no indication that he has citizenship elsewhere, and you’d expect the article to mention it if he did. And, I mean, realistically, most people don’t; it’s just not very likely.

In any case, the bar for removing citizenship is typically extremely high.

Countries are usually under no particular obligation to repatriate their citizens, though, and they usually can’t force repatriation.

[eru]

Well, they'd have to let him in. But I don't think they have to arrange for his flight nor have to force him.

[KarlKemp]

Germany's constitution specifically prohibits the taking away of citizenship––it's one of those lessons learnt from the Holocaust when German jews were systematically disenfranchised by taking away their citizenship. Quote:

Article 16

Loss of citizenship may occur only pursuant to a law and, if it occurs against the will of the person affected, only if he does not become stateless as a result.[0]

There is a very narrow exception for certain configurations of dual citizenship, but there's no reason to believe this guy has a second citizenship––his name is more German than comfortable for my tastes, and it would probably be mentioned in the article because it would draw yet another government into this comic relief of an international incident.

Come to think of it, I now kinda wish he had some interesting dual nationality. Cuban, maybe. Or North Korea, if one can dream.

0: https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80201000.pdf

[gowld]

> his name is more German than comfortable for my tastes

Bold claim, Karl.