German-Turk held in Gitmo (from 19 to 24)---US knew he was innocent

[bobbieinok]

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,437087,00.html

Meeting Murat Kurnaz
A Visit with a Man Wrongly Detained at Guantanamo
By Cem Özdemir

--Murat Kurnaz was detained in the United States detention camp at Guantánamo, Cuba, for almost five years and released three weeks ago. Cem Özdemir, a member of the European Parliament, visited Kurnaz at his home in Bremen and reports back about a German man of Turkish origin who appears to be anything but a fanatic.--


Twenty-four-year-old Murat Kurnaz spent five years as a detainee in the US military camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He was wrongly identified as an accomplice of the Taliban and recently released.
How does one talk about the emotions stirred up by a meeting with someone who has spent five years of his life in a detention camp, living in scandalous and ignoble conditions? How does one express one's sense of what that person must have experienced? The man in question is now 24 years old. During a period of almost five years -- a period during which I married, became a father and was elected into the European Parliament -- this man was effectively stripped of his rights and had to live in complete isolation, in conditions that have driven other detainees to commit suicide.

Murat Kurnaz once had a "normal" life too. He wanted to start a family in Germany, along with his Turkish fiancé. He had completed his apprenticeship as a shipbuilder. He played guitar in his free time and liked sports -- like many other people his age. Then he travelled to Pakistan in the fall of 2001, apparently in order to devote time to his religious faith and expand his knowledge about Islam by visiting religious schools. He was "in the wrong place at the wrong time," is what insiders in Washington say -- sometimes cynically, sometimes laconically. They know Kurnaz was innocent when he was apprehended and detained. The United States -- and Germany -- discovered quite quickly that the accusations against Kurnaz were groundless. And yet he was not released.

....

Whoever thought a system of secret prisons was impossible -- a system involving kidnappings of real and presumed al-Qaida members all over the world, the rendition of detainees to countries that practice torture and an extreme violation of international law via the suspension of the Geneva Conventions, all of this with the active support or at least tacit acceptance of numerous European governments in the "civilized" world -- has learned they were wrong.

That's why investigative committees in the European Parliament and the German Bundestag currently dealing with the "Kurnaz case" -- along with special investigator Dick Marty of the Council of Europe -- have good reason to do what they are doing. Would it not have been possible to get Murat Kurnaz out of Guantánamo sooner? And what does the "Kurnaz case" mean for the human rights legacy of the government under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder?

....

Just a few days after his release and return to his German hometown of Bremen, the Turkish general consulate in nearby Hanover got in touch with Kurnaz -- but not in order to join me in wishing him and his mother "gecmis olsun." Instead, the consulate reminded Kurnaz of his duty as a Turkish citizen -- that of doing his military service in Turkey. Whether the relationship between the rights and the duties associated with citizenship hasn't become oddly disproportionate in this case is a question Turkey should answer for itself.

But the bureaucratic rat race didn't end with Kurnaz's visit to the consulate. He still has to visit several government offices in Bremen in order to secure his permanent German residency permit. It's only following a November 2005 decision by Germany's constitutional court -- the highest legal instance in the country -- that Kurnaz can even be certain he hasn't already forfeited his residency permit. Because that's exactly what Bremen Interior Minister Thomas Röwekamp of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party claimed he had done. Röwekamp added the incredible explanation that Kurnaz had missed the deadline for making a formal request for the extension of his permit, as required by law -- as if Bremen's alien registration office had a branch office at Guantánamo.

more....

--Cem Özdemir is a representative of the German Green Party in the European Parliament in Brussels. He is the vice chairman of the special investigative commission formed to clarify the extent of the German government's complicity with illegal CIA activities in Europe.--

****

Also see earlier story.

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,433886,00.html



SPIEGEL ONLINE - August 28, 2006, 12:43 PM
URL: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,433886,00.html

Difficult Re-Entry for Guantanamo Prisoner
Learning to Walk without Chains
--For well over four years, Murat Kurnaz lived in a small, brightly lit cell at Guantánamo. Now a free man, he has to re-learn how to deal with reality -- and how to walk without chains on his feet.--


Murat Kurnaz arrived back home in Bremen on Friday morning.
Murat Kunaz may now be home. But the ex-Guantanamo prisoner, who arrived in Germany last Thursday following more than four-and-a-half years in isolation, has a long way to go before he re-adjusts to reality. Indeed, having not been allowed out of his cell without his feet chained together, Kunaz even had to relearn how to walk normally, his defense attorney says.

Kurnaz, now 24, touched down at the United States military base at Ramstein on Thursday evening following lengthy negotiations between Washington and the German government to secure his release. His lawyer Bernhard Docke said Kurnaz would first have to re-learn how to cope with reality. Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen with German residency, had never seen euro notes before and was surprised to learn that mobile phones now have cameras built into them. From the air base, Docke said, Kurnaz drove with his family to Bremen where he lived prior to his arrest. On the way, Kurnaz asked for them to stop the car so he could look at the stars -- which, because of the bright lights at Guantanamo, he hadn't seen in well over four years.

Kurnaz, who became known as the "Bremen Taliban" following his arrest in Pakistan in 2001, said the bright, neon light in his cell hadn't been turned off during the entire time he was held at the camp, his lawyer said in a press conference after his arrival in Germany.

Even in the process of freeing Kurnaz from imprisonment, the US took no chances. Docke says his client was chained to the floor of an American transport plane and his eyes were covered during the flight. Fifteen American soldiers were on the flight with him.

"The Americans are incorrigible, they have not learned a thing," Docke said. "He was returned home in chains, humiliated and dishonoured to the very end by the Americans."

Defense Department officials told the Washington Post last week that they agreed to release Kurnaz only after receiving assurances from Germany that he would be treated humanely and that he would not pose a security threat. Documents declassified and reported on last year made it clear that both US military intelligence and German officials had concluded that Kurnaz had no ties to al-Qaida or any other terrorist organization. Kurnaz has said he was on a missionary trip in Pakistan and was originally arrested by Pakistani authorities because he was a foreigner.

[AX10]

1. You see why we need to win back the congress?

[Solly Mack]

2. This is why the pretense being played out with the so-called "debate"

of Common Article 3 disgust me. America is ALREADY breaking the law. America is ALREADY torturing. America is already breaking Common Article 3.

The idea that IF Bush gets his way the image of America will change is laughable. America's image has already changed because America is already breaking the laws governing crimes against humanity. That idea that IF Bush gets his way, America would risk breaking the law is a lie. America is already breaking the law. Bush has gotten his way from the get-go.

It's not a question of losing our moral compass in the event of a Congressional act...America has already lost it's moral compass.

Congress shouldn't be "debating" giving Bush anything....Congress should be preparing articles of impeachment for crimes already committed. Then Bush should be prosecuted for war crimes.

[ninkasi]

3. That's right

I also read earlier today, and don't remember if it was here on DU, or someplace else, that our troops are using collective punishment in parts of Iraq that have a strong insurgent presence. I think that that's prohibited by the fourth Geneva Convention, but I'm not sure. It is, though, a war crime. Not that Bush cares.

We are sounding more and more like the Nazis. They used torture, and collective punishment, too. I guess Bush is listening to the spirit of his grandfather, do you think?

[Solly Mack]

4. I've read that.... regarding Ramadi (collective punishment)

The more I read about in the news and see on the news, the more it looks like a smoke and mirrors attempt to write the history they want people to believe rather than the events as they're actually happening.

News outlets pretending America doesn't already torture....Members of Congress pretending America doesn't already torture...Bush, liar as usual...

it's gone beyond shameful

[Marrak]

5. How many so far are being held?

In Gitmo, Iraq, Afganistan, in secret...etc.?

Defense Department officials told the Washington Post last week that they agreed to release Kurnaz only after receiving assurances from Germany that he would be treated humanely and that he would not pose a security threat.

WTF?

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