German troops face ‘strict measures’ over skull pictures

GERMAN chancellor Angela Merkel promised tough action after German soldiers in Afghanistan were photographed playing and posing with a skull.

“The chancellor has made it clear that she finds these pictures shocking and disgusting,” government spokesman Thomas Steg said, adding that Ms Merkel wanted the troops responsible to face “strict measures”.

Germany’s top-selling newspaper Bild yesterday splashed photographs of four German soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force displaying a skull like scalp hunters.

The defence ministry said it had launched an internal investigation and was questioning two men, while Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung threatened to dismiss the culprits.

In one of the pictures, a soldier mounts the skull on the cable cutter at the front of the group’s patrol vehicle, which bears both the German flag and the acronym for the international force, ISAF.

In another, a soldier in camouflage uniform and a bullet-proof vest poses with the skull next to his exposed penis.

Bild said the photographs were taken in spring 2003.

The report said the soldiers found the skull on the outskirts of Kabul while they were patrolling near the Afghan capital. There were conflicting reports as to whether they took it from a gravel pit or a grave.

“These pictures revolt and mystify me,” Mr Jung said.

“It is clear that such behaviour cannot be tolerated from German soldiers.”

The general inspector of the German armed forces, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, said two soldiers had been taken in for questioning, one of whom has completed his tour of duty in Afghanistan and left the army.

“One is still a soldier, one is not. Both are being questioned,” he told a press conference.

Mr Schneiderhan said one of the men had come forward after seeing the pictures.

The state prosecutor’s office in Potsdam, outside Berlin, confirmed that it had launched a criminal investigation into the affair on charges of “disturbing the peace of the dead”.