International - Globescan   

Shock over skull photos

Berlin: Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed disgust on Wednesday at photos that appeared to show German troops in Afghanistan posing with a human skull and pledged that any soldiers found to be involved would be punished severely. The pictures were printed by the biggest-selling daily, Bild, which said they showed German peacekeepers near the capital, Kabul, in early 2003. The uniformed men were seen holding up the skull and posing with it on a jeep; one is seen exposing himself with the skull. The headline declared: ``German soldiers desecrate a dead person.'' The newspaper said it was unclear where the skull came from, but cited an unidentified serviceman as saying it may have come from a suspected ``mass grave'' outside Kabul. The paper, which would not identify the source of the photos, said it was unclear whether the skull belonged to an Afghan or dated back to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. — AP

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Let talks be held in a timeframe: Colombo
Pakistan presses U.S. for civil nuclear energy pact
U.S. bypassing me: Maliki
Face-to-face with Putin
To carry on round the world
Full face transplant
Ahmadinejad calls for a baby boom
Tension in north, east
Iraq a policy disaster: U.K.
Shock over skull photos
Anti-graft forum
Change of policy or time-off for tit-for-tat?
India, Japan to raise ties
An Indian among Rolex Enterprise Award winners
Indian public want peace: Musharraf

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu