BERLIN, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Afghan asylum seeker Abdul D. will spend eight years and six months in prison for murdering his 15-year-old ex-girlfriend in the west German town of Kandel, the Landau regional court ruled on Monday.

The court found the suspect guilty of killing local resident Mia a few days after Christmas in December 2017 as punishment for having separated from him earlier. Shortly before the deadly incident took place in a drugstore, the girl and her father had reported Abdul D. to police on counts of libel, duress and making threats and infringing on her privacy.

The public was excluded from the eight-month court proceedings which occurred under juvenile criminal law because the exact age of the suspect is unknown.

The Afghan asylum seeker himself indicated being 15-years-old and was consequently treated as an unaccompanied minor when he arrived in Germany. However, a subsequent assessment by state prosecutors concluded that Abdul D. must be at least 17.5 years old and was more likely around 20 years old.

As a consequence, the case has sparked a heated and ongoing public debate over whether the German asylum policy and the specific procedures by which authorities determine the age of young asylum seekers upon arrival are still appropriate.

The anti-immigrant group "Kandel is everywhere" was set up in response to Mia's death to draw attention to the alleged threat posed by asylum seekers to the German native population more generally and drew 4,000 protesters to its first rally.

The Kandel incident was also cited by far-right protesters during recent and widely-publicized violent demonstrations in Chemnitz after a 35-year-old German succumbed to his injuries from a knife attack in a brawl involving an Iraqi and a Syrian national.

The Landau court confirmed on Monday that it had reached a ruling on the basis of juvenile criminal law on counts of murder and assault. During the private hearings, state prosecutors had reportedly demanded for Abdul D. to be imprisoned for a period of ten years.