By DPA,
Hamburg/Kabul: German military pistols are being sold on the black market in Afghanistan and Pakistan, German NDR radio reported Sunday.
Weapons belonging to a German shipment of 10,000 pistols intended for the Afghan police and army were reportedly being illegally traded.
Neither the German government nor the responsible US-led security team in Afghanistan had tracked the whereabouts of the guns after their delivery in 2006, NDR said.
Arms dealers in the region told the radio station that hundreds of German weapons were for sale.
The German guns reportedly carry additional prestige and command price tags of over $1,000 (680 euros). In Kabul, a barely used 50-year-old German gun was being offered for $1,600.
Current and former Afghan soldiers and police officers were illegally selling the weapons, which were also being smuggled to regions including Pakistan’s northwest border provinces and neighbouring tribal areas, NDR reported.
The German guns were also being traded in northern Afghanistan, where German soldiers are stationed as part of the NATO-led mission to the country.
The German defence ministry told NDR they had given the Afghan interior ministry 10,000 old Walther-P1 pistols in January 2006, “to arm the burgeoning security forces”. These were to be distributed to the police and armed forces.
The US-led team charged with monitoring the weapons’ whereabouts can reportedly vouch for less than half of the original shipment, which the German defence ministry had not tracked either.
Germany’s Green Party and the Police Trade Union have demanded an investigation.
The 2006 delivery was reportedly approved the previous year, as an exception to a government principle that German weapons could not be used to equip non-NATO countries.
The decision, passed by Germany’s then-coalition of Social Democrats and Greens, only reached the parliament after the weapons had been delivered.
Green Party spokesman Winfried Nachtwei accused the former government of a “grossly negligent course of action”, and called for the matter to be investigated in the interest of German security forces and civilian experts sent to Afghanistan.
“It would be truly absurd if soldiers were threatened by weapons irresponsibly delivered by Germany,” Nachtwei told NDR.
Joerg Radek of the Police Union said, “The danger is that such weapons could fall into the wrong hands. It is a risk for the Germans deployed there, a risk to security in the country.”