Schroeder's media battle intensifies

Schroeder says his privacy takes precedence

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's lawyers go to court on Tuesday to defend an injunction prohibiting a German regional newspaper from publishing allegations about his marriage.

There has been extensive speculation about Schroeder's marriage

The Berlin state court will rule on a challenge by Maerkische Oderzeitung newspaper to the December injunction banning it from repeating its own earlier story.

The paper cites press freedom in its defence, while Mr Schroeder says his right to privacy takes precedence over the public's right to know about his personal life.

Another German regional newspaper, Suedwestpresse, which printed the same report as the Maerkische Oderzeitung, is also challenging an injunction, although a court date has not yet been set.

The hearing comes only a day after a German court said it had no power to gag a British newspaper, which had published similar allegations about Mr Schroeder's marriage.

Warning message

A spokeswoman for the Hamburg court announced that an injunction issued against Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, last week applied only in Germany.

We can publish this sort of material and believe we have every right to do so

Mail on Sunday

Therefore, she said, the injunction could not stop the paper from making the claims it published in its original double-page spread on 5 January and a 19 January follow-up article.

The order would only prevent the Mail on Sunday from selling these editions in Germany, she said.

The initial ruling had said that the newspaper would face a fine of up to $250,000 if it breached the terms of the injunction.

The injunction focused on six allegations about Mr Schroeder's fourth marriage, to the former journalist Doris Schroeder-Koepf, which were contained in the first article.

The BBC's Berlin correspondent, Katya Adler, says Mr Schroeder's injunction is believed to be intended as a warning to the media in Germany.