Germany: Shoot down hijacked planes
The German government plans to change the constitution so security forces can shoot down planes hijacked by terrorists as a last resort, the interior minister said.
Wolfgang Schaeuble said officials would draw up new legislation and an amendment to the constitution after the country’s supreme court rejected an earlier air-safety law.
Shooting down hijacked passenger planes could be justified if the threat to Germany was considered severe, Schaeuble told the Saechsische Zeitung newspaper.
“In the case of September 11, the shooting down (of the hijacked planes) would have been necessary as well as legally admissible,” he was quoted as saying.
The Federal Constitutional Court struck down the 2005 air safety bill in March, saying authorities had no right to kill innocent civilians.
It also found that allowing the military to shoot down civilian airliners violated a constitutional bar on the military being deployed for domestic security.
