I was beaten by German soldiers: Murat Kurnaz 05/10/2006 00:00

5 October 2006

BERLIN - The German Defence Ministry said Wednesday it will investigate a claim that German soldiers in Afghanistan beat up a man in 2001 before he was transferred to the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The German weekly Stern said earlier in the day that Murat Kurnaz, 24, a Turkish national who grew up in the German city of Bremen, alleged he was yanked by the hair and had his head banged on a floor in 2001 by two men with German military flags on their fatigues.

He said both spoke German during the questioning in a US military jail at Kandahar in Afghanistan.

In Berlin, the ministry said it had asked all German personnel who had been in Kandahar for comment, but had no evidence that any German soldiers had interrogated Kurnaz.

Kurnaz, who is alleged to have gone to Afghanistan to help the Taliban, was recently freed to Germany after four years in the US camp for enemy combatants.

A German parliamentary committee is currently studying whether German security agencies breached any German rules while assisting post-2001 US anti-terrorism operations.

DPA

Subject: German news