BERLIN, May 4 (UPI) -- A top German security official said Berlin did not pay a ransom to free the two German men abducted in Iraq more than three months ago.
"It is our clear principle that the German government refuses ransom payments," Reinhard Silberberg, who headed the foreign ministry's task force to free the German hostages, told the Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper. "The German government will not let itself be blackmailed."
Observers say it is unlikely that the German government managed to free Rene Braeunlich and Thomas Nitzschke, two engineers who had been in the power of Iraqi abductors for 99 days, without paying a large ransom.
German Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler further fueled ransom speculations when he said the abduction was not a politically motivated crime, but part of Iraq's "kidnapping industry."
Officials from the government did not comment on how the men were freed.
The abducted men, two engineers from the eastern German city of Leipzig, had joined a work stint in the Sunni triangle and were taken hostage at gunpoint on Jan. 24. They were freed Tuesday and are now back in Germany.
