Kurnaz - Murat Kurnaz V. George W. Bush

Murat Kurnaz V. George W. Bush

Kurnaz was one of the detainees with enough legal assistance to challenge the legality of his review in a Washington, D.C. federal court. A writ of habeas corpus, Murat Kurnaz v. George W. Bush, was submitted on his behalf in October 2004. His case was one of nearly 60 that were submitted following the US Supreme Court's decision in Rasul v. Bush (2004), which ruled that detainees had the right of due process and habeas corpus to challenge the grounds of their detention. The numerous cases were reviewed and coordinated by Judge Joyce Hens Green of the US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia.

In response to Kurnaz' habeas corpus petition, on 15 October 2004, the Department of Defense published 32 pages of unclassified documents related to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

In 2005, Kurnaz's file was declassified, through a bureaucratic slip-up. During the brief window when it was declassified, in March 2005 the Washington Post reviewed all the evidence against him and published a summary.The file documented that both German investigators and United States Army investigators had failed to find any evidence of a tie between Kurnaz and Al-Qaeda or any involvement in any terrorist activities, and this information was available in 2002.

Carol Leonnig reported:

"In fact, that evidence, recently declassified and obtained by The Washington Post, shows that U.S. military intelligence and German law enforcement authorities had largely concluded there was no information that linked Kurnaz to al Qaeda, any other terrorist organization or terrorist activities."

The three officers of the military panel who reviewed Kurnaz' case asserted that they had other, classified evidence that established his guilt. But, they never disclosed this evidence to Kurnaz, his attorneys, or to the public.

One allegation was that he was traveling to Pakistan with a friend Selcuk Bilgin, who the Pentagon said was involved in a bombing. This was not true; he is married and lives in Germany with his family, and has never been arrested nor involved in a bombing.

During his CSRT reviews, Kurnaz was erroneously informed by the interrogators that Bilgin had been "engaged" in a suicide bombing, and asked him to describe his relationship to Bilgin. Kurnaz denied having any knowledge of Bilgin's involvement in a suicide bombing, and denied knowing anybody who ever discussed committing an act of terrorism.

Kurnaz is one of the detainees who has alleged that he was subject to what the Bush administration termed "enhanced interrogation techniques," generally known as torture, which included a type of suffocation by drowning (known as waterboarding), sexual humiliation, beatings, extremes of heat or cold, and the desecration of his religion.

According to a German news source, he had been denied the right to return to Germany, as his 'indefinite residence permit' had expired due to his being out of the country for more than six months. (As the child of 'guest workers,' under German law, he is not automatically afforded full German citizenship; but since he was born in Bremen, he is granted an 'indefinite residence permit' there and an opportunity to become a naturalized citizen.) This ruling by the Foreign Office was overturned by the regional administrative court of Bremen on 30 November 2004, stating that due to his incarceration in Guantanamo, he had been unable to apply for an extension of his 'leave permit' and was still eligible to return to Germany.

On December 14, 2005 it was confirmed that officials of the German foreign and domestic intelligence agencies (Bundesnachrichtendienst and Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) had participated in the interrogation of Kurnaz at least once during a stay at the Guantanamo Bay camps between September 21 and September 27, 2002. German authorities are forbidden to assist in the legal process of a foreign nation if the punishment from that process can result in the death penalty, or if the legal process fails to meet certain standards of fairness. The detainees in Guantanamo Bay were potentially capable of being executed following their trials (if they were charged with capital crimes — Kurnaz was not), and debates abound regarding the fairness of the process.

According to a December 22, 2005 story by United Press International, Kurnaz' brief stay at a Tablighi Jamaat hostel led to the United States intelligence officials' decision to capture and detain him.

In May 2008, Kurnaz testified from Bremen, Germany via videolink to a US Congressional hearing on due process for detainees. The lawmakers had recently received declassified documents that showed both German and United States intelligence officials had determined in 2002 that Kurnaz was not a member of al-Qaeda and had no links to them. But, he was detained and ill treated for four more years. The military has said its panel reviewed information that is still classified but has never offered to share that even with lawmakers with top security clearances. Both Republicans and Democrats were disturbed about Kurnaz' case, as it followed other reports of excesses in the US war on terror.