Ex-Gitmo prisoner tells all
And puts Germany and the US to shame in the process.
The German-born Muslim Murat Kurnaz has made new allegations of mistreatment at prisons in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay in testimony to a German parliamentary committee.Bremen-born Murat Kurnaz in Berlin on Wednesday. The German-born Turkish citizen was held at Guantánamo for almost five years.
The case of Murat Kurnaz has deepened as the former Guantánamo detainee testifies to a parliamentary committee investigating his alleged mistreatment at the hands of German soldiers.
Kurnaz made new allegations Wednesday of torture and human-rights abuses in the US coalition's jail in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was held in 2001 and 2002. Members of the German parliament who heard his testimony said they were shaken by the Turkish citizen's claims, although his account has not been verified.
He said Wednesday that he had been suspended for several days in chains while in Kandahar and inspected by a doctor only for his "fitness to be tortured." He claimed a German-speaking interrogator gained regular access to him in both prisons dressed as a Red Cross worker, and that other prisoners in Kandahar were exposed -- either naked or in thin clothes -- to extreme cold.
Parliamentary members reported Kurnaz's claims to the German press on Wednesday. Elke Hoff, a member of the business-friendly FDP (Free Democrats) party, said Kurnaz's story was believable, and wanted to call witnesses from the Red Cross to learn whether one of the group's members -- or just one of its uniforms -- had been used to help interrogate Kurnaz.
Left Party member Paul Schäfer said Kurnaz's testimony had bolstered his suspicion that the Kandahar prison was a "hell before the hell" of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Kurnaz's claims last October of mistreatment by Germans in Kandahar have led to a investigation of two members of the elite German Special Forces Command (Kommando Spezialkräfte, or KSK). The German parliament now wants to learn whether German officials knew enough about his case to free him during ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's term in office, which ended in 2005.
Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen born and raised in Bremen, Germany, was arrested in Pakistan shortly after Sept. 11, 2001 and sent to prison in Afghanistan. He was transfered to Guantánamo Bay in 2002, the same year US officials suggested he should go free for lack of evidence. The US released him only after a personal intervention by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington in 2006. Kurnaz now lives with his family in Bremen.
Kurnaz, who turned 24 on Thursday, is an embarrassment to US and German authorities because he spent so much time in the terrorist prisons Kandahar and Guantánamo without ever yielding evidence of belonging to a terrorist group.
How many others does our government torture in our name?
Thanks, for the tip, Susan.
But this half sentence seems a bit strange:
"although his account has not been verified."
I have watched the Guantanamo film made by the young Brits who have also been imprisoned in Afghanisthan and Guantanamo.
Their accounts of what happened to them was very similar.
So there is definitly corrobation to Murat Kurnaz´s story.
I guess mainline media just can´t help themselves, they must plant doubts where there reasonably shouldn´t be one. And they must present as facts things which even contradict the laws of physics, just to protect the interests of the power elites.
material which confirms that members of German parliament consider his testimony to be very credible.
redeemed
my question to all the "shocked" ones out there in cyberspace is this; Exactly what were you expecting to happen? Have you conveniently forgotten El Salvador in the 1980's???? Yes, Virginia, we really finance and support death squads in Salvador, Guatemala, and a host of other places around the world in our insane lust to "establish moral authority and justice". How many times do we have to hear the lies??? If you continue to play the game every four years, you should not be surprised at the same result. WHY THE HYPOCRITICAL SHOCK,PPL????? You think that because we dont speak German or Russian the same CANNOT happen here?? O, naive ones!!
The devils who are torturing foreigners today will be at your doorstep tommorrow,and your heads will STILL be up your asses because you just can't "fathom" the reality that is. You continue to build a castle on the beach, while, unseen by you, a gigantic tidal wave is about to crash down, destroying you and your precious sand castle. Yet all you do is continue to focus on the pretty little stones and pebbles adorning your sand castle. Not only that, you actually have the gall to demand the rest of us focus on the pretty little stones made of jade and emerald, adorning your flimsy castle, ridiculing and castigating those who are shouting the obvious!! You simply cannot be bothered. Drown then.
not me and erIanda, who know too well, the ruthless practices of these self-declared 'protectors of freedom and democracy'
I like your style, though!
And I do believe the worm is turning. There is only so much longer they can keep a lid on all this vile evil.