Germany denies paying ransom for hostages
A senior German foreign ministry official has denied that the country paid a ransom to secure the release of two German hostages in Iraq who were freed this week. “The German government does not give in to blackmail,” Reinhard Silberberg, the head of the crisis team in the foreign ministry, told the Leipziger Volkszeitung. “It is a matter of principal that we do not pay ransoms,” Silberberg added Thursday. Full Story