From: "Mario Profaca" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: January 26, 2007 4:29:27 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [SPY NEWS] Germany does some soul-searching on detainee
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-
spy26jan26,1,5142010.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true
Germany does some soul-searching on detainee
Documents show officials may have let an innocent man languish for
years at Guantanamo.
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Times Staff Writer
January 26, 2007
BERLIN — A tale of torture and imprisonment told by a man with a
scratchy voice and a beard flowing to his waist has shaken the German
Parliament and sparked an intelligence agency scandal that has
engulfed Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The case of spies and leaked documents has pointed up the injustices
that can arise in the fight against terrorism. It has revealed to this
nation, a frequent critic of Washington's treatment of suspected
militants, that its own officials may have allowed an innocent German
resident to languish for years in a U.S. prison cell at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.
The case began in 2001 when Murat Kurnaz, a German-born Turk, was
arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of being a militant. He was
transferred to Afghanistan, where he says American interrogators hung
him from chains. He was sent to Guantanamo and held there until last
August, when he was released.
He was never charged with a crime.
Intelligence documents cited by German media suggest Kurnaz, a
24-year-old shipbuilder, could have been freed years earlier.
The files indicate that the CIA offered to release Kurnaz and return
him to Germany in 2002. One German intelligence operative noted that
Kurnaz might be persuaded to turn informer and infiltrate radical
Islamic networks. At the time Kurnaz's fate was being decided,
Steinmeier oversaw German spy agencies as chief of staff to
then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
Documents being examined by a special committee of Parliament allege
that Steinmeier and former foreign intelligence director August
Hanning rejected the U.S. offer. It is unclear why the Germans
apparently balked, but American officials have said in recent months
that foreign nationals detained in Guantanamo often are not freed
because their home countries fear they may be extremists and don't
want them back.
The chance to have Kurnaz released "should have been taken," said
lawmaker Max Stadler, a member of the special committee. "I can't see
any sensible reasons why the former federal government missed this
chance."
Steinmeier, who became Chancellor Angela Merkel's foreign minister in
2005, has denied that the U.S. planned to send Kurnaz to Germany.
"I am not aware of … such an official offer," he said this week as
politicians demanded that he be more forthcoming.
He is expected to testify before the special committee in March.
The documents suggest there were at least informal discussions between
U.S. and German intelligence officials on releasing Kurnaz.
Some lawmakers and commentators have blamed Steinmeier for ignoring
Kurnaz's predicament because the young man, though born and raised in
Germany, has retained his Turkish citizenship.
"To ask why we should bother about this Turk at all is inhuman," said
Siegfried Kauder, chairman of the special committee. "After all,
Kurnaz grew up in Germany. And if the government thought they
shouldn't be concerned, they should have informed Kurnaz's lawyer so
that he'd be able to seek help elsewhere."
Kurnaz had been a media curiosity to many lawmakers until last week
when, wearing a dark suit, his unruly red beard splayed across his
chest, he testified before the committee. He said he was beaten by
American and German interrogators, forced to sleep naked on the floor
and held in an isolation cell. Lawmakers described the testimony as
harrowing and credible.
"We need to ask ourselves how it could happen that we moved away from
the state of justice after 9/11," Cem Ozdemir, a German representative
to the European Union, told reporters. "How can we control
intelligence agencies?"
The case is not the only spy scandal damaging the reputation of the
former Schroeder government, which opposed the Iraq war and the CIA's
handling of suspected militants. Recent disclosures suggest a close
intelligence relationship between the U.S. and Germany that included
collaborating on another detained German resident and providing
American forces with information on potential military targets in
Baghdad during the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
These revelations, along with Germany's role as a fly-over country for
U.S. planes transporting suspected terrorists, have angered the public
and led to criticism over the government's commitment to human rights.
Writing in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper Thursday, journalist Andreas
Foerster said the actions of Steinmeier and former intelligence
officials in the Kurnaz case were "cold-hearted and anti-
constitutional."
Chancellor Merkel so far has supported Steinmeier, who in the last 15
months has emerged as a key negotiator in Middle East peace efforts
and the standoff over Iran's uranium enrichment program.
If Steinmeier is forced to resign, Germany's fragile coalition
government will be in crisis just as the country has assumed the
European Union's rotating presidency.
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