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"Bremen Taliban" Case

Kurnaz Mistreated by German Soldiers?

In his first interview since being released from Guantánamo, Murat Kurnaz, the man who became known as the "Bremen Taliban," has claimed he was physically abused by men in German uniforms while being held in a US secret prison in Afghanistan.

He remained silent for weeks, at least in public. Now Murat Kurnaz is talking. In a lengthy interview with the German magazine Stern, the 24-year-old man from Bremen revealed details of his detention in the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay. The young man, who is a Turkish citizen with German residency, was held there as an enemy combatant for four years.

He was only recently released after long negotiations with the German government. But the Germans now find themselves at the receiving end of Kurnaz's most serious accusations, which allege that he was mistreated by German elite soldiers in a secret US prison in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. "I hadn't even been there for two weeks when I was led behind two trucks one evening," Kurnaz said. "I was told that two German soldiers wanted to see me. They were wearing camouflage fatigues, the pattern was made up of small dots as if it had been done on a computer, and they had the German flag on their sleeves."

According to Stern, such uniforms are also worn by the KSK, Germany's elite special forces. Kurnaz claims the would-be Germans proceeded to abuse him. "I was forced to lie down, hands tied behind my back. One guy pulled me up by the hair. 'Do you know who we are?' He wanted to brag. 'We are the German forces.' Anyway, he hit my head on the ground, and the Americans thought this was funny." Kurnaz also asserts that he was abused by American soldiers at the detention facility, among other things with electric shocks.

At the time of the alledged mistreatment, presumably sometime between December and January 2002, the elite KSK troops were the only German soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. They operate in complete secrecy: even the German parliament and its committees are kept in the dark or only informed after the fact about their missions.

A spokesperson for the Defense Ministry said at a government press conference that at the moment there is no information to suggest that German soldiers were present during interrogations and said that "there is nothing known about mistreatment."

Kurnaz's statement now indicates that during their secret missions in Afghanistan, German soldiers even had access to the Americans' so-called secret prisons. It is, of course, no secret that such a prison existed in Kandahar, where hundreds of suspected terrorists were detained without rights and sometimes also interrogated under torture. However, if German soldiers -- even those belonging to a secret unit -- had been operating there, the German military could face considerable scrutiny.

Kurnaz also reported that, contrary to previous reports, he was interrogated twice by German agents at Guantánamo Bay. So far, German officials have only acknowledged one single Guantánamo visit, namely in September 2002. The question of a second visit, which Kurnaz alleges took place roughly two years later, will certainly interest a parlimentary inquiry.

The question also remains of why Kurnaz was not released any earlier. In 2002, the government of former chancellor Gerhard Schröder was already convinced that Kurnaz was completely innocent. The United States had also indicated a willingness to release the man from Bremen. Yet the chancellor's office had reacted coolly to those plans.

spiegel/ddp/AP