March 30, 2008
Ex-Terror Detainee Says U.S. Tortured Him
Tells 60 Minutes He Was Held Underwater, Shocked And Suspended From the Ceiling
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Play CBS Video Video Nightmare At Guantanamo Bay An innocent man held as a terror detainee for years tells Scott Pelley, in his first U.S. television interview, how Americans tortured him in Afghanistan and then at Guantanamo Bay.
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Video Scott Pelley's Notebook Even after determining he was not a terrorist, Murat Kurnaz says the U.S tortured him for years. He tells his story on American television on 60 Minutes this Sunday, March 30, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
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Murat Kurnaz (CBS)
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Interactive Gitmo Tribunals Detainees on trial, photos and a history of the naval base.
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60 MINUTES
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Documents referring to ex-terror detainee Murat Kurnaz's innocence:
- FBI Memo
- German Intelligence Document
- U.S. Intelligence Document
The story Kurnaz told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley is a rare look inside that clandestine system of justice, where the government's own secret files reveal that an innocent man lost his liberty, his dignity, his identity, and ultimately five years of his life.
60 Minutes found Murat Kurnaz in Bremen, Germany, where he was born and raised. His parents emigrated there from Turkey. His father works in the Mercedes factory. Kurnaz wasn’t particularly religious growing up, but in 2001 he was marrying a Turkish girl who was. And he decided to learn more about Islam.
"I didn't know how to pray. I didn't know anything," Kurnaz says. "So I had to study more about Islam so I could go to the mosque and pray."
In Bremen, he met Islamic missionaries who urged him to go to Pakistan for study. As he was planning the trip, 9/11 happened. He told 60 Minutes he was horrified by the attacks, and had never heard of al Qaeda. He decided to go ahead with his trip anyway.
"You went to Pakistan several weeks after 9/11," Pelley remarks. "Did you begin to think that that wasn't a great idea?"
"Today, I know it wasn't a great idea," Kurnaz says.
Kurnaz told 60 Minutes his story using the English that he learned from his American guards. If he seems a little distant, reserved, you'll understand why as his story unfolds. It begins in 2001, when he was at the end of that trip to Pakistan. He was headed to the airport to fly home to Germany when his bus was stopped at a routine checkpoint.
"They stopped the bus and because of my color, I’m much more different than Pakistani guys," says Kurnaz, who is lighter-skinned. "He looked into the bus and he knocked on my window."
"He" was a Pakistani cop who pulled Kurnaz off the bus. The reason Kurnaz was singled out may always be a mystery. But at the time, the U.S. was paying bounties for suspicious foreigners. Kurnaz, who'd been rambling across Pakistan with Islamic pilgrims, seemed to fit the bill. Kurnaz says that he was told that U.S. intelligence paid $3,000 for him. He ended up bound and shackled on an American military plane.
"I was sure soon as they would find out I'm not a terrorist, they will apologize for it and let me go back home," he says.
But the plane flew him out of Pakistan and to a U.S. base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was mixed with prisoners fresh off the battlefield. His new identity was "number 53." He was kept in an outdoor pen, in sub-freezing weather and interrogated daily.
"They asked me, 'Where is Osama bin Laden,' and if I am from al Qaeda or from Taliban. Questions like that. I told them, 'I don't know where is Osama bin Laden, I never saw him and I don't know anything about al Qaeda. I don't know what it is.' And I spent all my time in Pakistan," he says.
Asked what happened next, Kurnaz says, "I told them just they can call Germany to ask who I am and they can ask anybody in Germany who I am."
Back in Germany, Bremen police were investigating, and what they were hearing made matters worse: Kurnaz's worried mother told them her son had recently become more religious, had grown a beard and was attending a new mosque; schoolmates said that Kurnaz might have been headed to Afghanistan.
"It was just guessing, just fear, no more. But the fear turns into a fact," says attorney Bernhard Docke, who was hired by Kurnaz’s mother.
He says there was no reason to suspect Kurnaz knew anything about al Qaeda. But this was weeks after 9/11 and some of the hijackers had been living in Hamburg. "And so close after 9/11, and close after Germany realized that 9/11 started with the Hamburg cell in Germany, everybody in the secret services got crazy," Docke says.
Produced by Graham Messick and Michael Karzis
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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See all 2150 CommentsAn innocent man gets tortured, and you couldn''t be happier. Go post on FOX News you dweeb!
This story is perfectly believable, and there is no reason to doubt this man''s account, but while some people might argue as to whether or not this particular instance is true, what we DO know is that torture has been a widespread practice under the Bush regime, and that in some cases, the USA even tortures prisoners to DEATH:
ABC News-
"The sources said that in that case a young, untrained junior officer caused the death of one detainee at a mud fort dubbed the "salt pit" that is used as a prison. They say the death occurred when the prisoner was left to stand naked throughout the harsh Afghanistan night after being doused with cold water. He died, they say, of hypothermia."
"According to the sources, a second CIA detainee died in Iraq and a third detainee died following harsh interrogation by Department of Defense personnel and contractors in Iraq."
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866
It is not possible to reduce terrorism using torture, since torture IS terrorism.
At any rate, the top global terrorist threat, BY FAR, is the global terrorist network that currently operates out of the White House.
All other "threats" pale by comparison, and are hardly worth mentioning.
Re: "There is no greater weapon in the war on terror than undersstanding & a warm greating"
That''s pretty profound, "j-whitman"
I think "SearingTruth" would really like that one.
You may be right, i was referring to the statement Jesus made about judge not lest you be judged, or the statement, Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
We also have crime here but nothing like in the states. I walk the streets day and night and never worry about where i fo to. I had a friend teaching police in Indonesia. He stopped at a Mosque one day. A man walked up and asked him what he wanted. He explained he had never been to a mosque and wanted the opportunity to learn more aboiut their religion. The man invited him in and they talked for two hours. When he was off on Saturdays he would buy a big bag of candy and walk down the stree passing it out to children. He told me they may grow up hating Americans but they will remember there was this one time when an American smiled at them, talked to them and gave them candy. He too was doing his part to try to increase the public opinion of Americans to be better thought of.
What is your religion ? Does it acceopt you ? Are you perfect in every way and make no mistaks so that you are acceptd ? I chose Budhism because it gave me what i was looking for spiritually. Noone said i had to be perfect to be a Budhist. I am continually learning daily about the religion. I accept it as it is. I see Budhists making mistakes daily, are they not Budhists because they are not perfect ? Seems Jesus addressed this issue before also.
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