For Wolfgang Daschner, the choice on Oct. 1, 2002 was between following the letter of the law, or perhaps saving the life of a kidnapped child. In the end, he opted to try to save the child and set off a roiling debate over the law and its limits, and where one draws the line in matters of life and death.

The 61-year-old former deputy police president is accused of telling an interrogator to threaten intense pain on the kidnapper of 11-year-old Jakob von Metzler, the son of a banker who had been abducted on this way home from school.

"We wanted and had to save Jakob's life," he told the court. "I want to make it clear that at no time did I give the order to torture."

Daschner wrote a memorandum in his files remarking that the kidnapper, Magnus Gäfgen (photo, left), would be questioned anew after threats of "the infliction of pain under medical supervision." According to Daschner, the threat was the only way to possibly save the child. However, Jakob at that point was already dead.

Despite his intentions, under German law, torture is illegal. Daschner is being charged in a Frankfurt regional court with serious coercion in office. He faces a sentence of between six months and five years. The 51-year-old interrogator, who received the instructions from Daschner, faces similar charges in court.

OK from above

The scope of the matter expanded further when Daschner testified earlier that he got the go-ahead to threaten Gäfgen from none other than his superiors at the interior ministry of the state of Hesse. Daschner has refused thus far to reveal who he spoke to at the ministry, saying such information could wait for the trial. The as-yet unnamed official allegedly told Daschner when the policeman asked about making torture threats: "Do it! Show instruments!"

Hesse's interior minister, Volker Bouffier of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), has said he has no evidence that his ministry ever gave Daschner permission to make threats. "We deny that absolutely," he said during a committee meeting on Monday.

But Günther Rudolph, spokesman on domestic matters for the opposition Social Democrats, said there was a good deal of evidence of close communication between Daschner and Udo Corts, the state secretary in the interior ministry at the time.

"The number of participants was very small," Rudolph told reporters. "It's very disappointing that Interior Minister Bouffier cannot clear up the accusation."

Public support

Daschner has found support among the German public, and even from some politicians and police chiefs. For many, he is a hero, because he was doing all he could to save the life of an 11-year-old child.

In a survey in the news magazine Stern, 60 percent of those asked thought that Daschner should not be punished for what he did.

Others, however, warn that despite some understanding for the magnitude of what was at stake, an absolute ban on torture should not be weakened. Lawyers and human rights activists have argued that there is no such thing as "a little torture."

Prosecutors said at a hearing in February that despite the fact that Daschner might have had a motive that was "understandable," this did not make "in legal terms, the threat of torture an acceptable means" of interrogation.

Daschner's lawyer, Eckart Hild, is seeking an acquittal for his client. He will argue that Daschner's actions were "necessary and proportionate to the situation." The question, he has said, is whether the police must sit and wait while "a kidnapped child dies an agonizing death."

A verdict could be handed down before the end of the year.