BERLIN, Nov 27 (Reuters) - The German government has told deputies that three Germans arrested in Kosovo on suspicion of throwing explosives at an EU office are intelligence operatives, the head of a parliamentary committee said on Thursday. Thomas Oppermann, who chairs the German parliamentary committee overseeing intelligence operations, said the government had informed the committee the three were working for Germany's BND intelligence agency in Kosovo. "They were operating there for the BND," he told reporters after the committee met in Berlin. He declined to say what their assignment had been. The explosive charge was thrown on Nov. 14 at the International Civilian Office (ICO), the office of EU Special Representative Pieter Feith, who oversees Kosovo's governance, but caused only minor damage. "We don't have any indication that the three German officials in Kosovo had any connection to the attack," said Oppermann, a member of the Social Democrats, the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government. He called for their immediate release. The men were detained last Thursday. The three were questioned on Saturday by a Pristina district court judge who ordered them to be detained until Dec. 22. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February after nine years under U.N. stewardship and is recognised by more than 50 countries, including Germany. Four days before the bomb attack, its leaders rejected a plan by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's for the deployment of an EU police and justice mission, EULEX. (Reporting by Sabine Siebold, writing by Paul Carrel)
