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German television aired more photographs of German soldiers playing with human skulls in Afghanistan, fueling a scandal that has shocked the country and triggered an official probe.
RTL television showed pictures of a soldier kissing a skull, and of another posing with a skull mounted on his patrol vehicle. In a third photograph, several skulls are piled on top of each to form a pyramid.
The television channel said the pictures were taken with a digital camera and dated from March 2004, making them roughly a year older than macabre photographs of soldiers and skulls published in Bild newspaper on Wednesday.
These have shocked Germany and led to a criminal investigation against six soldiers who have served with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
The chief of staff of the Bundeswehr, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, denied suggestions that the fact that a second set of pictures have come to light proved that such behaviour was widespread among German troops.
“It is another isolated case,” Schneiderhan told RTL, but vowed that the soldiers involved would face a “merciless” inquiry.
Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung has told parliament that the men in the photographs would be duly punished.
“We have within the space of 24 hours identified and investigated six soldiers, four of whom are no longer in the army,” Jung said.
“We will take all available steps. They will face criminal prosecution. They will be properly punished.”
Bild said the images it printed were taken outside Kabul in spring 2003.
They show soldiers posing with a skull mounted on a patrol vehicle bearing the German flag and the acronym ISAF. In one picture, a soldier in a camouflage uniform holds the skull next to his exposed penis.
The Bundeswehr said it appeared that the soldiers had found the skulls in a cemetery south of Kabul.
State prosecutors have said they could face charges of disturbing the peace of the dead, which carries a prison sentence of up to three years.
Germany is the second biggest contributor of peacekeepers to Afghanistan with 2,750 troops and holds the command of ISAF in the north of the country.
The scandal comes just as Berlin agreed to extend the mandate of its men serving in ISAF until November 2007 and Jung unveiled plans for Germany to take on more international peacekeeping missions.
It has caused outrage at home and abroad.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said the pictures were “shocking and disgusting” while NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told Der Tagesspiegel daily the soldiers' behaviour was “unacceptable”.
The US justice ministry has demanded a “watertight investigation”.
The men reportedly belonged to a mountain infantry battalion stationed at Mittenwald in the Bavarian Alps that is considered one the country's elite units.
A spokesman for the main army union, Bernard Gertz, has warned that Bundeswehr soldiers in Afghanistan could face a backlash because of the photographs.
He compared the pictures to those of US military personnel abusing detainees in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
“Such grave misconduct is bound to endanger the safety of the soldiers serving in Afghanistan. These pictures will of course be published in the Islamic world and will be used against us by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda,” Gertz said.
