Fighting terrorism should not break any laws: German FM

Khaled el-Masri

December 15, 2006

German Foreign Minister Frank- Walters Steinmeier said Thursday in Berlin that the German authorities have never broken any laws in fighting terrorism.

He made the remarks to reporters before receiving a parliamentary inquiry, which is probing if former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government was aware of the alleged U.S. abduction of German citizen Khaled el-Masri in 2003.

"We sometimes had very difficult decisions to make. But these were always within the framework of the state of laws, and will continue to be so," said Steinmeier, who served in Schroeder's office at that time.

On the same day, his predecessor Joschka Fischer told the parliamentary inquiry that he had not known anything about el- Masri's abduction.

El-Masri, a Muslin of Lebanese origin with German citizenship, is suing the United States for damages.

The German parliamentary inquiry had heard that the then U.S. ambassador to Berlin Daniel Coats informed then German interior minister Otto Schily on May 31, 2004 of el-Masri's mistaken abduction and afterward release.

Fischer said he had not learned of the meeting from Schily but from reading about it in the online version of the Washington Post newspaper. Fischer is currently teaching at Princeton University in the United States.

German officials all denied that they have known anything about the abduction till after el-Masri was freed.

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