Ali Bashar Ahmad Zebari was born on 11 March 1997. He used his second given name as a surname when he arrived in Germany, so media initially reported his name as Ali B. or Ali Bashar. According to Stefan Müller, the head of police for western Hesse, Zebari had probably migrated to Germany in October 2015 as part of a wave of other migrants. Zebari lived in a refugee station in the Erbenheim district of Wiesbaden and was known to police authorities for other crimes involving violence. His asylum application had been rejected in 2016, but he was allowed to stay in Germany while his appeal was being reviewed. He was also one of several suspects in the sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl living in the same refugee shelter.