10/29/2001 - Updated 06:56 PM ET Taliban 'embassy' probed in Germany

By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

BERLIN — Until April, when German police shut it down, the Taliban ran an illegal embassy in a Frankfurt office building where at least two Taliban officials issued visas, passports and other documents for years. Investigators from the Federal Criminal Office, the equivalent of the FBI, are looking to see whether there are any links between the unofficial embassy and Taliban-backed terrorists, federal police spokesman Norbert Unger said Monday.

Germany has figured prominently in the investigation of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11 in New York and Washington. U.S. and German officials say Mohamed Atta, one of the suspected leaders of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, lived for months in Hamburg as a student.

Among documents that passed through the Taliban office, which was searched by police and shut down in April, is a list of names that may be an extension of an "enemies list" issued in 1999 by Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

The Taliban regime, which controls about 90% of Afghanistan, is not recognized by Germany. The official embassy is operated in Berlin by representatives of the Northern Alliance, which is fighting the Taliban in northern Afghanistan. The United States, which is leading a military campaign against Afghanistan, accuses the Taliban of harboring Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The list, which is written in Arabic and names more than 100 Taliban enemies, including Afghan exiles in Europe and Pakistan, is part of a federal terrorism investigation, said Rainer Schilling, a spokesman for the prosecutor in Frankfurt.

In 1999, Amnesty International obtained a similar document that listed opponents of the Taliban. Several people on it have died in explosions, assassinations and other attacks, according to Amnesty International. German police, who have not yet determined whether the latest list is authentic, would not disclose who is on it.

The Taliban office mainly issued birth and marriage certificates, passports and visas to enter Afghanistan. "They declared themselves to be the proper consulate, but the European Union does not accept the Taliban government," chief federal investigator Klaus Neidhardt said.

Schilling said those who operated the office at 45 Niddastrasse in Frankfurt could be charged with "false assumption of authority," which carries a 2-year prison sentence upon conviction, or "improper use of title or profession," which carries a 1-year sentence.

"The office has been closed because it was illegal," Schilling said. No arrests were made, but he said the investigation will continue.

Investigators do not know how many people sought documents there and would not say whether suspected terrorists, such as Atta, obtained documents or received official messages at the office.

Officials at the Embassy of Afghanistan said they learned of the office last year when an Afghan citizen brought one of the unofficial visas to the recognized embassy.

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2001