The German Defense Ministry challenged a newspaper Saturday to provide proof for a claim that German soldiers terrorized a little Afghan boy in 2002 by holding a gun to his head.

The newspaper Berliner Morgenpost said it would carry a report in its Sunday edition quoting a non-commissioned officer who had served in Afghanistan as claiming that she witnessed the incident in Kabul.

"We call on whoever is claiming this to provide us with the necessary proof without delay so that we can investigate the allegation thoroughly and quickly," a ministry spokesman told German news agency DPA.

The newspaper said quoting the man that a German soldier serving in Afghanistan as peacekeeper called over the boy, caught him in a headlock, held a loaded gun to his head and was photographed by other soldiers.

Last month, photographs were revealed that German soldiers mocking skull they had found lying by a roadside in Afghanistan.

The incidents alarmed the country and an investigation has been launched, but prosecutors said Friday that they could not indict the soldiers involved as German law regards nothing but mocking human remains kept in a cemetery as an offense.

Source: Xinhua