A German court has acknowledged it has no power to gag a British newspaper, which has published allegations about Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's private life.

A spokeswoman for the Hamburg court announced that an injunction issued against Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, last week applied only in Germany.

We can publish this sort of material and believe we have every right to do so Mail on Sunday

Therefore, she said, the injunction could not stop the paper from making the claims it published in its original double-page spread on 5 January and a 19 January follow-up article.

The order would only prevent the Mail on Sunday from selling these editions in Germany, she said.

Warning message

The initial ruling had said that the newspaper would face a fine of up to $250,000 if it breached the terms of the injunction.

The injunction focused on six allegations about Mr Schroeder's marriage, which were contained in the first article.

There has been extensive speculation about Schroeder's marriage

The BBC's Berlin correspondent, Katya Adler, says Mr Schroeder's injunction is believed to be intended as a warning to the media in Germany.

The court order is only one of a number of legal battles Mr Schroeder has been waging against media speculation about his fourth marriage, to the former journalist Doris Schroeder-Koepf.

His lawyers go to court on Tuesday for a hearing to rule on a challenge by a German regional newspaper to an injunction banning it from repeating its own earlier story about alleged marital problems.

Defiance

Mr Schroeder says his right to privacy takes precedence over the public's right to know about his personal life.

Even before the injunction U-turn, the Mail on Sunday had insisted that the ruling applied only to Germany and that as such it would not be bound by the order.

"For now, at least, we can ignore this blustering and these threats," it said in a statement.

"Because of our different tradition and our robust democracy, we can publish this sort of material and believe we have every right to do so," it said.