[Flowers and a heart-shaped personal note are fixed on a tree on December 5, 2016 in Freiburg, southwestern Germany, near the river Dreisam, where a young woman was killed]© dpa/AFP Patrick Seeger Berlin (AFP) - Germany voiced anger Thursday that Greece failed to issue a cross-border arrest warrant for an Afghan asylum seeker who is now the chief suspect in the rape and murder of a female student. The case against Hussein K., who says he is 17, has inflamed passions in Germany, where debate is raging about how to integrate more than one million recently arrived refugees and migrants. The young Afghan was arrested in Germany on December 2 over the killing of a 19-year-old female medical student two months earlier after his DNA was found at the crime scene and he was identified on CCTV. Authorities in both Germany and Greece confirmed Thursday that Hussein had previously done jail time in Greece for the attempted murder of a young woman, but was released early and subsequently vanished. "This is very upsetting and we will certainly have to discuss this with the Greek side," said German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere about the fact Greek authorities did not issue a European or international alert. Greek media also slammed the authorities for their mishandling of the prison release programme and for failing to alert the global policing agency Interpol that the teenager had fled. MATCHING FINGERPRINTS Hussein had arrived in Germany in 2015 -- when almost 900,000 asylum seekers came to the EU's largest economy -- as an unaccompanied minor and had been living with a host family. Only now have police confirmed, using the suspect's fingerprints, that he had been jailed in Greece by a juvenile court for robbing and assaulting a woman in 2013 on the island of Corfu. In that attack, he stole the bag of a 20-year-old student and then threw her off a cliff, leaving her badly injured. She later identified him as the same person involved in the German case. The Afghan teen was released from Greek jail in 2015. Despite strict conditions requiring him to report to police every month, officials lost trace of him two months after he was freed. News of the young Afghan's arrest in Germany triggered angry reactions on social media with some people saying an ironic "thank you" to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The chancellor said that while any murder must be condemned, the crime should not be used to target "an entire group". Merkel, who will next year seek a fourth term in office, has faced criticism for her previous open-door policy towards refugees, although more recently she has tried to curb the influx. Germany received 890,000 asylum requests in 2015 but that rate slowed to 213,000 from January to September this year following a deal with Turkey and a series of border closures on the Balkan route. NOW WATCH: NASA just spotted a massive hole growing on the sun — here’s what it means
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