German skull troops avoid charges

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German prosecutors have halted an investigation into two soldiers accused of photographing each other in obscene poses with human skulls in Afghanistan.

The German soldiers will not face charges because the human remains were not found in a cemetery or official burial site.

Charges of desecration are therefore not applicable under German law.

In October the German newspaper Bild published a series of the photographs, causing outrage in Germany and abroad.

The 2003 photographs were taken in a residential area near Kabul at a site used by locals for obtaining building materials.

The soldiers are believed to have found the bones at an open clay pit and not a cemetery.

"Only if it had been such a place would this mischief have been punishable," a Munich state prosecutor told the Reuters news agency.

Munich authorities believe the skeletons in the area are those of Russian soldiers killed during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to the AFP news agency.

Six members of the German army were suspended over the incident and a further 23 put under criminal investigation.