(BSS/AFP) - Germany deported a man to Syria for the first time since the civil war broke out in that country in 2011, the interior ministry in Berlin said Tuesday. A Syrian immigrant previously convicted of criminal offences in Germany was flown to Damascus and handed over to Syrian authorities on Tuesday morning,

the ministry said.

"Our society has a legitimate interest in ensuring that criminals leave our
country," Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said in a press release.

The deportation just before Christmas capped months of talks with Syria`s
government, which mirrored similar efforts by Berlin to strike a deportation
deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Human rights groups have criticised efforts to send immigrants back to either
country, citing continued instability and evidence of rights abuses.

But Germany`s conservative-led government has made the resumption of
deportations to Syria a diplomatic priority since former president Bashar al-
Assad fled the country just over a year ago.

In July, Austria became the first European Union country to deport someone to
Syria since 2011.

The German ministry said that deals have now been struck with both Damascus
and Kabul to allow regular deportations of "criminals and dangerous
individuals" in the future.

Roughly a million Syrians fled to Germany to escape the civil war, many of
them arriving in 2015.

The Syrian man deported on Tuesday had served a prison sentence in the
western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia for aggravated robbery, bodily
harm and extortion.

The ministry said an Afghan man was also deported to his home country on
Tuesday. That man had also served time in prison for intentional bodily harm
and other crimes.