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Celle: Lower Saxony-Bremen State Social Court
Photo: Julian Stratenschulte/ picture alliance/dpa
According to a ruling by the State Social Court of the states of Lower Saxony and Bremen, a couple from Nigeria must pay back around 33,000 euros because they wrongly received basic security from abroad for years. According to its own information, the court in Celle dismissed a lawsuit filed against it by the couple on Monday. The reason given was that the man and the woman had deceived the authorities and courts about their whereabouts (ref
.: L 13 AS 395/21
).
According to the social court, the couple had been receiving so-called basic security in Bremen since 2014. In 2018, however, when the couple entered Bremen Airport, the federal police noticed that stamps in their passports indicated that they had been abroad for several years. The job center therefore demanded money back: the couple had stayed abroad without consent and were not available for job placement.
According to the court, the apartment in Bremen is not occupied
The couple denied they were staying abroad and sued, which led to a lawsuit. After “extensive taking of evidence,” the court confirmed the job center’s legal opinion in its ruling on January 24th. There is “no reliable evidence” that the plaintiff and the plaintiff are staying in Germany. In this respect, this is the burden of proof - not the job center.
According to the court, the couple's apartment in Bremen, which was financed by the job center, was demonstrably not inhabited, among other things. The man also has an employee ID card from a Nigerian transport company and the woman is licensed to practice law in Nigeria, it was said. They did not work in Germany and their children did not attend school in this country either.
wit/AFP