News | 16.Sept.2007 | 12:00 UTC (CET)

Germany would shoot down passenger plane

Germany would shoot down a passenger plane that had been hijacked for an attack even though the constitution makes no provision for such an event, according to Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung. Jung, speaking to Focus Magazine on Sunday said "if there were no other way, I would give the order to shoot it down to protect our people." Germany's federal constitutional court has ruled that a hijacked plane can be shot down providing only the hijackers are on board. Earlier this month Germany arrested three men it said were planning "massive" attacks on the US airbase in Ramstein and other targets. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in a Sunday newspaper that the risk of a terror attack remained high despite the arrests of the men who prosecutors said were members of the Islamic Jihad Union, a group with links to Al-Qaeda. Schaeuble said experts were convinced that extremists would one day attack with nuclear weapons.

Source: Deutsche Welle @ DW-WORLD.DE