Torture debate continues
01 May 2004
In October 2003, Frankfurt police officers, acting on orders from Deputy Chief Constable Wolfgang Daschner, threatened Magnus Gäfgen with torture unless he disclosed the whereabouts of the kidnapped child, Jakob von Metzler. Gäfgen told the public prosecutor in January 2003 that a police officer told him that:
a specialist is on the way...who would inflict extreme pain. The treatment would not leave any marks...The [police] officer...threatened to put me put in a cell with two big niggers who would sexually abuse me....[He said] he wished I had never been born.[1]
The events were justified by politicians and police representatives on the grounds that it was only "human". To save a child's life, officials would consider torture in the sake of "interest balancing" (see Statewatch vol 13 no 2 for a critique of the arguments promoted by politicians and police in favour of torture).
It was not until June 2004 that the Frankfurt regional court pressed charges against the police officer and Daschner, on grounds of coercion and encouragement, respectively. It will take at least until November for the trial to begin, due to legal proceedings against the accused. After the incident, the Hessian regional government ordered Daschner back to the regional interior ministry to fulfil "administrative duties". The police officer was transferred to another position within the Frankfurt police force.
In line with the general anti-terrorism discourse, statements in favour of torture in "exceptional cases" have continued. The latest came from a history professor teaching at the military academy in Munich. Michael Wolffsohn said in a television interview in May that: "[a]s one of the tools in the fight against terrorism I believe torture or the threat of torture to be legitimate". His comments were criticised by some politicians but also led to anti-Semitic hate mail from the far-right and Islamic extremists (Wolffsohn is Jewish). The Ministry of Defence said it was considering disciplinary measures and Defence minister Peter Struck reprimanded him for damaging the army's image.
Wolffsohn defended his comments on the grounds of freedom of thought and with the somewhat contradictory statement that: "torture has to remain unlawful. However, that does not mean that we should not think about [its] legitimacy". His justification for the necessity to "rethink" the state's strategy is the danger of "international terrorism." Wolffsohn held that it was hypocritical that some politicians criticising his statement had themselves passed the new law on secure airspace, which allows the army to shoot down hijacked airplanes (see this issue).
[1] Heiner Busch "Rechtsstaat und ein bißchen Folter" [Legal democratic order and a bit of torture] in Grundrechte Report 2004 (pp21-24), Süddeutsche Zeitung 19.5.04, 23.6.04; Die Welt 12.7.04