German president in loan scandal

GERMAN President Christian Wulff personally called the editor of Bild, the country’s top-selling newspaper, last month and threatened legal action if it published a story on a private home loan he received at cheap interest rates.

Bild confirmed media reports yesterday that the head of state had left a message on its chief editor Kai Diekmann’s voicemail in which he threatened the paper with legal action and expressed outrage about its plans to publish the story.

The paper said Wulff had called back days later to apologise for the “tone and content” of the voice message, without giving further details.