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FIVE YEARS OF MY LIFE -- AN INNOCENT MAN IN GUANTANAMO |
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CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS OCTOBER 3, 2001: A few weeks after the September 11 attacks on the United States, 19-year-old Murat Kurnaz flies to Karachi, Pakistan, without telling his parents he is leaving. He spends some eight weeks traveling the country and visiting various mosques. OCTOBER 7, 2001: The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan begins. OCTOBER 11, 2001: Prosecutors in Bremen begin investigating Kurnaz and three others "on suspicions of their having formed a criminal organization," The investigations come after Kurnaz's mother tells police that her missing son had changed recently, growing a beard and becoming religious. One of Kurnaz's teachers at his shipbuilding school cites unnamed students as reporting that Kurnaz was going to Afghanistan. DECEMBER 1, 2001: On the way to the airport in Peshawar, Kurnaz is stopped at a police checkpoint. He spends several days in Pakistani jails before being handed over to the U.S. military, who take him to a U.S. military base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. JANUARY 9, 2002: The German Intelligence Agency informs the German government under Chancellor Gerhard Schroder that Kurnaz -- a Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Germany -- is being held in Kandahar. JANUARY 11, 2002: The first prisoners are brought from Afghanistan to the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. FEBRUARY 1, 2002: Kurnaz's mother writes to the German Foreign Office asking for help in obtaining information about her son. Police inform her that he is to be transferred to Guantanamo. FEBRUARY 2, 2002: Kurnaz is flown to Guantanamo. FEBRUARY 15, 2002: The German Federal Prosecutor's Office refuses to take over the investigations concerning Kurnaz from local Bremen prosecutors, citing the lack of "clear evidence" indicating "the formation of a terrorist association." FEBRUARY 20, 2002: Investigators from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Bremen interview Kurnaz's fellow students, including some openly hostile to him. A note from those interviews records "no direct statements that [Kurnaz] wanted to fight against the Americans in Afghanistan." APRIL 28, 2002: Together with some three hundred other Guantanamo prisoners, Kurnaz is transferred from Camp X- Ray to the newly built Camp Delta. MAY 27, 2002: German attorney Bernhard Docke begins representing Murat Kurnaz. SEPTEMBER 23-24, 2002: Two officials from the German Intelligence Agency travel to Guantanamo and interrogate Kurnaz for twelve hours under CIA supervision. After the interrogations, one of the officials notes that "in the estimation of our U.S. allies a considerable number of the detainees are not part of the terrorist milieu." His colleague, however, notes: "Against the backdrop of Kurnaz's possibly imminent release, the question must be addressed as to whether the return of this Turkish citizen is in Germany's interest, or whether, in light of the expected media attention, everything possible should be done to prevent his return." SEPTEMBER 26, 2002: The German Intelligence Agency informs the government in Berlin by cable that "the U.S. sees Murat Kurnaz's innocence as established" and that he will be released in six to eight weeks. OCTOBER 13, 2002: Bremen authorities suspend their investigations of Kurnaz. OCTOBER 27, 2002: Three Afghans and a Pakistani become the first inmates released from Guantanamo. They reveal to the international media that they had been physically abused and held in solitary confinement. NOVEMBER 8, 2002: After weeks of deliberations, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution tells the CIA that, should Kurnaz be released, it is their "express wish" that he not be returned to Germany. MARCH 19, 2003: The U.S.-led war in Iraq begins. NOVEMBER 19, 2003: German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer raises Kurnaz's case with Secretary of State Colin Powell, but no agreement is reached. MAY 12, 2004: The city of Bremen declares that Kurnaz's German residency permit officially expired in May 2002. This decision would later be overturned by a Bremen court. JUNE 28, 2004: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that prisoners in Guantanamo have a right to challenge their incarceration via the American legal system. JULY 2, 2004: Kurnaz's mother petitions a U.S. court for her son's release on the grounds that it violates the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Convention, and international law concerning human rights. Similar petitions are filed on behalf of sixty-three other prisoners. SEPTEMBER 30, 2004: Murat Kurnaz appears before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal in Guantanamo. He -- together with all the other prisoners who appear before such tribunals -- is classified as an "enemy combatant." OCTOBER 8, 2004: U.S. attorney Baher Azmy visits Kurnaz in Guantanamo for the first time. JANUARY 31, 2005: Senior U.S. District Court Judge Joyce Hens Green rules that some of the conditions and treatment of the prisoners in Guantanamo, including the trials conducted by the military tribunals, violate the U.S. Constitution. She specifically addresses the case of Kurnaz, citing the fact that, in the estimation of German authorities, there is no hard evidence connecting him with terrorist activities. NOVEMBER 22, 2005: Angela Merkel succeeds Gerhard Schroder as German Chancellor. NOVEMBER 30,2005: A Bremen court reverses the decision concerning the expiration of Kurnaz's residence permit. DECEMBER 19, 2005: Kurnaz's German attorney, Bernhard Docke, writes to Chancellor Merkel, reminding her of his client, who he says "has been held in Guantanamo for four years in inhumane conditions." JANUARY 13, 2006: Merkel raises the issue of Kurnaz with President George W. Bush during an official visit to Washington. JANUARY 17, 2006: The German Chancellor's Office decides that Germany will readmit Kurnaz to the country, should he be released. JUNE 29, 2006: The U.S. Supreme Court rules by a 5-3 margin that the military tribunals in Guantanamo are unconstitutional. JULY 13, 2006: At a meeting in the German city of Stralsund, Merkel and Bush once again discuss Kurnaz. The U.S. and German governments are actively engaged in negotiations concerning his release. AUGUST 24, 2006: Kurnaz is released and flown to the U.S. Air Base in Ramstein, Germany. He remains under the surveillance of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution until December 2006. NOVEMBER 22, 2006: Kurnaz testifies before of the European Union Parliament's Special Investigations Committee Concerning the CIA. JANUARY 17-18, 2007: Kurnaz testifies in front of a special investigations committee of the German Bundestag, established to determine whether he was physically abused by German soldiers while being held at the U.S. military base in Kandahar. JANUARY 23, 2007: The EU Parliament's Special Investigations Committee Concerning the CIA releases its final report, which includes Kurnaz's descriptions of being tortured. The report states: "As early as 2002 the intelligence agencies of the U.S. and Germany concluded that Murat Kurnaz had no connections to either Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and did not represent a terrorist threat."
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