Former Terror Detainee Recalls Captivity (Held Underwater, Shocked, And Suspended From the Ceiling)

[sabra]

Source: CBS News 60 Minutes

Tells 60 Minutes He Was Held Underwater, Shocked, And Suspended From the Ceiling

(CBS) A German resident held by the U.S. for almost five years tells 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley that Americans tortured him in many ways - including hanging him from the ceiling for five days early in his captivity when he was in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Even after determining he was not a terrorist, Murat Kurnaz says the torture continued. Kurnaz tells his story for the first time on American television this Sunday, March 30, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Kurnaz, an ethnic Turk born and raised in Germany, went to Pakistan in late 2001 at age 19 to study Islam and wound up in Pakistani police custody. It was three months after 9/11, and Kurnaz says the U.S. was offering bounties for suspicious foreigners. Kurnaz says he was "sold" to the Americans for $3,000 and brought to Kandahar as terrorist suspect.

He claims American troops tortured him in Afghanistan by holding his head underwater, administering electric shocks to the soles of his feet, and hanging him suspended from the ceiling of an aircraft hangar and kept alive by doctors. "Every five or six hours they came and pulled me back down and the doctor came," he recalls. "He looked into my eyes. He checked my heart and when he said 'okay,' then they pulled me back up," he tells Pelley.

The U.S. Pentagon responding by e-mail says, "We treat all detainees humanely… and all credible claims are investigated thoroughly…. The abuses Mr. Kurnaz alleges are not only unsubstantiated and implausible, they are simply outlandish."

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/28/60minutes/main3976928.shtml

[Jim__]

1. When I was young and people used to talk about Nazi torturers ...

... the part I could never understand is where they found the people to commit torture. But I guess they're easy to find.

This is a disgrace that the US will never live down.

[tonkatoy57]

4. I guess it's just our turn

I've never thought "how can people be so evil" or "how does something like this happen"? I've always wondered why it doesn't happen more often than it does.

It's like Hannah Arendt said when she coined the term "banality of evil", people who do evil are not necessarily monsters, sometimes they’re just bureaucrats.

Although I will admit to hoping that there is a special place in hell for medical doctors who take part in this type of activity. Hippocratic Oath indeed.

[Jim__]

8. But, when Arend spoke of the "banality of evil" ...

... she was specifically speaking about Eichmann. Eichmann was a bureaucrat and did not consider the human consequences of his acts. A torturer cannot deny the pain his actions cause another human. It's a different thing.

[tonkatoy57]

9. You have a point..

but I'm not certain I agree that the "torturer cannot deny the pain". I know you were speaking specifically about human suffering but perhaps the torturer, by thinking of their victim as "less than human", obviates the consequences of his actions.

[SusanLarson]

2. Dr Strangelove

It's easy to get this type of response from a pr flack, and it still be totally false. Simply have interrogations compartmentalized. The PR spokesperson can truthfully say with all due outrage that this does not happen in the military because they really and truly believe what they are saying is true. While at the same time the Army version of DR. Strangelove is practicing his grisly trade. I hate to say it but in this case I believe the detainee because under to our government's twisted defintion of what constitutes torture, the actions described in the above article do not.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

10. I could never bring myself to accept the "compartmentalization" excuse/defense,...

,...by those who persistently present lie after lie after lie after lie. :shrug:

[magellan]

3. Somebody's lying

The fact that these allegations are being made by former detainees -- suspects cleared of wrongdoing -- who were held for years without access to legal counsel, says much about just who is lying.

[sabra]

5. check out this snip - they kept him Gitmo for another 3 1/2 years knowing his innocence

<snip>

After a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2004, Kurnaz was visited by an American lawyer, who successfully sued the U.S. government to release his classified file. That file contained information from the FBI, German Intelligence and even the U.S. military pointing to his innocence. But after a series of Kafkaesque military tribunals and review boards, he remained in Guantanamo for another three-and-a-half years.

Kurnaz' lawyer, Baher Azmy, says there may be many more cases like Kurnaz’s at the offshore prison. "In Guantanamo, no detainee has ever been able to genuinely present evidence before a neutral judge and so as absurd as Murat Kurnaz's case is, I assure you, there are many, many dozens just as tenuous," Azmy tells Pelley.

[magellan]

7. And yet the Pentagon wants us to believe *them*

For anyone reading who doesn't believe this man was tortured, I ask you to imagine this.

Someone you know and love is arrested by the police one night, and that's all you know or hear of them for a year. This might be your daughter, your son, your brother, your best friend, your father. The police won't tell you anything about their well-being or the charges against them.

Finally you're able to get hold of the arrest record which suggests their innocence, but you learn there's no public trial forthcoming. You have no way to present this evidence to a court of law that YOU have access to.

The police hold your friend/relation for several more years incommunicado. Then suddenly they're released without charge and return home. Naturally you're frantic to know what happened to them during all those years, and they tell you horrifying stories about how they were tortured.

You go to the police and demand an explanation. They tell you that this person you care about, who they detained for years without evidence (otherwise they wouldn't be free), is lying.

Who do you believe?

The only significant difference between this analogy and Kurnaz's story is that you don't know him. Does that make his treatment acceptable?

Bear in mind similar stories have been repeated by many former detainees.

[The Stranger]

6. This from Scott Pelley? He had appeared to be either a Neocon whore or an imbecile.

At least up until now.