A German Court on Wednesday sentenced an Iraqi immigrant to life imprisonment for raping and murdering a teenage girl last year, AFP reported. The crime had fueled far-right protests against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome almost one million asylum seekers in 2015.

The judge, Juergen Bonk, found the crime to be of exceptional severity. This meant Ali Bashar will not be granted parole even after 15 years in prison, which is usually the case in Germany.

The presiding judge said that Bashar committed a “coldblooded murder” and showed “neither remorse nor empathy”, adding that during his trial the defendant had “voiced no sincere word of regret”.

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Bashar was sentenced amid tight security at the court in Wiesbaden, the city where the girl was murdered, BBC reported.

“Part of my future and my heart disappeared”, the girl’s mother had told a court last week. “I have already been given a lifetime sentence.”

On May 23, 2018, Bashar battered, raped and strangled the 14-year-old Jewish schoolgirl to death in a wooded area near the railway tracks. He then sent false messages from her phone which indicated that she had left for a sudden trip to Paris. On June 6, her body was found covered with leaves, twigs and soil in a shallow grave.

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The accused fled back to Iraq after committing the crime, and was arrested and extradited to Germany by Iraqi authorities a month later. Later, Bashar admitted the murder but denied the rape charges. He claimed that the girl had consensual sex before she fell and threatened to call the police.

The case had put pressure on Merkel’s government over the decision to keep open German borders at the height of 2015 refugee crisis in Europe. The far-right Alternative for Germany party asserted then that the record arrival of migrants had triggered a rise in crime. Bashar, his parents and siblings arrived in Germany in 2015.