GERMANY: Germany orders inquiry into Afghan skull photos, Merkel calls German soldiers' behaviour "inexcusable," announces "drastic measures."

Record ID: 722361

  • Title: GERMANY: Germany orders inquiry into Afghan skull photos, Merkel calls German soldiers' behaviour "inexcusable," announces "drastic measures."
  • Date: 25th October 2006
  • Summary: MERKEL TALKING TO CABINET MEMBERS, SHAKING HANDS WITH DEVELOPMENT MINISTER HEIDEMARIE WIECZOREK-ZEUL
  • Embargoed: 9th November 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: International Relations,Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA4RQT1BTD07S28B6YH3576IGAQ
  • Story Text: Newspaper pictures purporting to show German soldiers desecrating a skull in Afghanistan sparked outrage in the country on Wednesday (October 25), with top ministers calling the images disgusting and ordering an immediate investigation.
    A photograph of a smiling soldier in fatigues posing with a human skull was splashed on the front page top-selling German daily Bild under the headline: "Shock photos of German troops".
    The images, apparently taken more than three years ago, come as the German army is seeking to expand its global role nearly 60 years after World War Two amid public scepticism. Other photographs showed an unidentified soldier clutching the skull next to his exposed penis and the skull resting on the front wing of a light armoured vehicle.
    German Chancellor Angela Merkel strongly condemned the behaviour of the soldiers shown in the pictures, calling the photographs "shocking and horrible."
    "The German government will investigate against the soldiers who play a role in this and take the most drastic measures," Merkel said, adding "such behaviour is inexcusable," she said.
    "These pictures arouse disgust and horror," Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said at a news conference which had been called to present a new long-term security strategy for Germany.
    "It is totally clear and unquestionable that such behaviour by German soldiers cannot in any way be tolerated."
    Jung's review, the first since 1994, sets out a vision for Germany's military as an intervention and anti-terrorism force.
    About 3,000 German soldiers are stationed in Afghanistan, mainly in the relatively quiet north and Kabul, in NATO's peacekeeping mission. Last month lawmakers voted to extend the mission, opposed by many Germans, by a year.
    Jung, who did not confirm the pictures' authenticity, said he had ordered an investigation and appropriate action against individuals would be taken if necessary. The head of the German soldiers' union, Colonel Bernhard Gertz, an outspoken critic of the German defence ministry, told Reuters Television "maybe we should pay even closer attention to the quality of the personnel we recruit than we did in the past."
    "We must remember that on the open market, quality is based on price," Gertz said, adding "and those who pay soldiers as poorly as we do maybe only get what's on offer at that price," he added.
    Lawmakers from all parties expressed shock over the photos which come over two years after images were published of U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail, a revelation which severely damaged the U.S. army's reputation.
    Bild did not say how it knew the photos were genuine nor did it say how it obtained the pictures, which it said showed the soldiers during a routine tour around the Afghan capital, Kabul.
    It quoted an unidentified army member saying the photos were taken in spring 2003 and an army member told Bild the skull could have come from a mass grave.
    The publication follows allegations German soldiers abused a Turkish man with German residency in Afghanistan before he was sent to the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
    Germany has tried in the last decade to expand its global role despite opposition among many Germans.
    Seven years after the country engaged in its first combat operations since the war in Yugoslavia, some 9,000 soldiers are deployed in hotspots including the Balkans, Afghanistan, Congo and off the Lebanese coast.
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