TemplateModelException during JSON GET

I investigated the cause a bit deeper and here is something odd about Lithium:

I have another line of code that contains a "?" and this works perfectly. So the character "?" is not an issue.

<#assign url_getTicketsForUserID = baseUrl + "tickets.json?external_id=" + external_id />
<#assign response_getTicketsForUserID = http.client.request(url_getTicketsForUserID).header("Authorization", "Bearer "+ response.content.access_token).json().get() />

When I try this

<#assign url_getUser = baseUrl + "users?query=abc" /> 

It fails with the following error:

Method "public final lithium.coreapi.webui.template.models.HttpClientResponseTemplateModel lithium.coreapi.webui.template.models.HttpClientRequestTemplateModel.get() throws freemarker.template.TemplateModelException" threw an exception when invoked on lithium.coreapi.webui.template.models.HttpClientRequestTemplateModel object "lithium.coreapi.webui.template.models.HttpClientRequestTemplateModel@66fc9c8f".    

 When I try the same URL in curl, I get a JSON Object back hence it is a valid command.

The result should be: {"users":[],"next_page":null,"previous_page":null,"count":0}

So what is going on here? Is there anyone from Lithium that can investigate with us on this? We are paying customer and need this roadblock to be resolved before we can launch Lithium.