http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20070216-124528-6025r
February 16, 2007 Agents contradict German foreign minister U.S. officials, with the backing of the Pentagon, offered Germany in September 2002 to release a German-Turkish Guantanamo inmate, a news magazine said. Contrary to what Berlin has said, two agents of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, told a closed session of a parliamentary inquiry that Washington in September 2002 was willing to release Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish national born and raised in Germany. The online service of German news magazine Stern quoted two BND agents, who had questioned Kurnaz in Guantanamo, as saying the Pentagon officially backed the offer to free him in November the same year. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has come under scrutiny for allegedly blocking Kurnaz's return to Germany, has previously said he never received an official U.S. offer to release the man. Steinmeier also said that a release was bound to commitments to place Kurnaz as a double agent within the German Islamist scene, but the two agents denied that as well. "No conditions" were pinned to Kurnaz's release, Stern quoted an agent as saying. The agents, in their testimony earlier this month, also reiterated the belief of U.S. and German intelligence that Kurnaz had no links to terrorist groups and was indeed harmless. Kurnaz ended up spending four and a half years in Guantanamo, a U.S. military prison in Cuba, before he was released on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's intervention in August 2006. A parliamentary inquiry is currently probing Germany's involvement in his detention, and Steinmeier is expected to testify before the inquiry next month. [iCopyright] Copyright © 2007 UPI. Displayed by permission. All rights reserved. +++ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
