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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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January 26th,
2007 - Germany does Some Soul-Searching on Detainee |
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Germany does Some Soul-Searching
on Detainee Documents show officials may have let an innocent man languish for
years at Guantanamo. By Jeffrey Fleishman Los Angeles Times 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. External link: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-spy26jan26,1,7762290.story |