Friday, May 26 2006 16:12 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday said the country would not tolerate racist violence during the World Cup, while prosecutors said they would be on duty full-time to deal with offenders.

"Anybody who threatens, attacks or worse, kills anybody because of the colour of his skin or because he comes from a foreign country will face the full force of the law," Merkel said.

Her remarks follow a spate of race-related attacks in the run-up to the World Cup which has caused concern that the host nation's reputation as a tolerant country was at risk. The chief prosecutor in the state of Hesse, in central-western Germany said prosecutors would be available all day and night during the June 9 to July 9 event, and there will always be one on hand at matches.

"We will be working 24 hours a day," Dieter Anders told a national conference of prosecutors in Wiesbaden, in Hesse.

The head of the federal crime-fighting bureau, Joerg Ziercke, employed a football analogy when he said that racist trouble-makers will be given the 'red card'.

A number of brutal attacks blamed on right-wingers has sparked a heated debate here about whether Germany had a growing problem with racism and xenophobia, notably in the former communist east of the country.

In the latest incident a politician of Turkish origin was beaten and slashed with a broken bottle in Lichtenberg, a suburb of Berlin known as a neo-Nazi stronghold, at the weekend. A government report released on Monday showed that right-wing attacks had increased by 23 percent in 2005.