"Kohl claims his government's approval of the 1991 sale of tanks to Saudi Arabia was based ``exclusively'' on foreign policy considerations in close consultation with Germany's NATO partners --like Britain and the US-- at the time of the Gulf War." Kohl Goes Before Parliament Panel By PAUL GEITNER .c The Associated Press BERLIN (AP) - Germany's beleaguered conservatives emerged from a convention this week with new leaders determined to put the party's financial scandal behind them. But new questions that surfaced Thursday around the old guard show how hard breaking free is going to be. While ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl denied new tabloid headlines suggesting his government might have accepted kickbacks, the party's recently deposed chairman went before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about illegal donations. Wolfgang Schaeuble, who took over the conservative party after Kohl's 1998 election defeat, was pressured into stepping down in February after being implicated in the mounting scandal himself. He was replaced as chairman Monday by Angela Merkel, who was one of the first in the party to break with Kohl and is untouched by the charges of secret bank accounts, money laundering and kickbacks. In an oft-bitter farewell speech Monday, Schaeuble went after Kohl, his former benefactor, for refusing to help the party put the affair to rest by revealing the sources of some $1 million in illegal contributions Kohl has admitted receiving in the 1990s. ``The law applies to everyone,'' he said. But on Thursday, Schaeuble defended Kohl in front of the parliament's investigative committee probing whether government decisions during Kohl's 16 years in power may have been bought. Prosecutors also are investigating allegations that party officials accepted $500,000 in alleged kickbacks from an industry lobbyist, Karlheinz Schreiber, to secure a 1991 tank sale to Saudi Arabia. Schaeuble, a former Cabinet minister under Kohl, said he knew of not a single case where donations were made to influence federal agencies or officials. Kohl repeated on Thursday that his government's approval of the sale was based ``exclusively'' on foreign policy considerations in close consultation with Germany's NATO partners at the time of the Gulf War. Other interpretations ``are without any factual basis,'' he said. He was responding to a report in Bild newspaper, which published a 1993 letter from then-party treasurer Walther Liesler Kiep to Kohl in which Schreiber and the tank deal are mentioned. Schaeuble also faced questions Thursday about a $50,000 cash donation he says he accepted in 1994 from Schreiber after a fund-raising event. His version of how the donation was made has been contradicted by another former treasurer, Brigitte Baumeister, and by Schreiber, who is fighting extradition from Canada. Schreiber was indicted last month in Germany on bribery and tax evasion stemming from the 1991 tank sale. Baumeister was to testify Friday. Kohl's lawyers were also considering seeking an injunction to prevent the release of East German secret police files concerning the former chancellor. Kohl has applied to see the files Stasi kept on him after newspaper reports said they stretched back to 1975 and included taped telephone calls from his official residence and conversations among his closest aides. Some have speculated the files could help identify Kohl's secret donors, but Volker Naumann, chairman of the investigative committee, has said his panel will not use the Stasi material because it was collected illegally. German law allows for publication of Stasi files dealing with historical figures, with provisions to weed out details deemed personal.
