using the service. However several Jewish leaders claimed Friedman's arrest was part of an anti-Semitic witch-hunt. Investigators raided his home and found small quantities of cocaine. He was fined €17,400 for possession of cocaine, on 8 July 2003. The settlement enabled him to avoid a trial. After publicly admitting to the drug possession Friedman stated "I have made a mistake. Drugs are no help. I am resigning from all public offices that I hold." As well as resigning from the Central Council of Jews Friedman also resigned from the Christian Democratic Party. However, since he did not apologise to the forced prostitutes themselves (keeping silent about the nature of his "mistake"), the German women's rights organisation Terre des Femmes and others strongly criticised Friedman's speech. When Friedman interviewed Youth and Sports Minister Akif Çağatay Kılıç in 2016 about the Turkish coup d'état attempt, mass layoffs and arrests that followed the failed putsch, and the media situation and the position of women in Turkey, the Turkish government confiscated the recordings. In response, Deutsche Welle Director-General Peter Limbourg condemned Turkey the seizure of the video tape as "a blatant violation of press freedom." Personal life Since July 2004 Friedmann has been married to Bärbel Schäfer, a former German TV celebrity. They got married at Park East Synagogue. The couple has two sons, Samuel (*2005) and Oscar (*2008 – named after Oskar Schindler). References 1956 births Christian Democratic Union of Germany politicians 20th-century German Jews Jewish German politicians 20th-century German lawyers German television talk show hosts German broadcast news analysts German newspaper journalists German television journalists Living people Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany ZDF people Die Welt people Hessischer Rundfunk people Jurists from Hesse