Wenzel Pleil: wants to bring charges

Wenzel Pleil has hired a lawyer to push for criminal charges in Germany and the US against Mr Starr for what he argues was the distribution of pornography on the Internet and on television.

The reporter on the Flensburger Tageblatt newspaper said: "Pornographic material was available in every nursery in Germany".

Herr Pleil, father of a four-year-old girl, said he also felt it was "unacceptable to watch a person dragged through the dirt with the blessings of the state".

According to Herr Pleil's attorney, Max Mulert, Kenneth Starr would face up to five years in prison under the German penal code if convicted of spreading "malicious gossip" degrading Bill Clinton and "obstructing his public and political work".

Publishing pornographic writings and making them available to those under the age of 18 is punishable by a jail sentence of one year.

Max Mulert said he was shocked to hear teenagers making schoolyard jokes about "the intimate details" of the sex scandal.

"We have laws to protect minors from pornography," he said. "This was published worldwide."

Germans have generally shown sympathy for the president and shock at the type of detail being reported.