German Cleared in Kidnapping Case

A German agent accused of kidnapping another German and of having links to a rebel group here has been cleared of all charges and is free to leave the country, judicial sources said. Werner Mauss and his wife, Michaela, were arrested in 1996 as they tried to smuggle Brigitte Schoene, the wife of a chemical executive, out of the country. Schoene had been abducted three months earlier by National Liberation Army guerrillas. German authorities later said that Mauss, a private investigator who had once worked for the German secret service, was on an undercover mission as part of Bonn’s efforts to broker a peace deal in the war-torn country.