A handful of US lawmakers gave only half an ear to the testimony on Tuesday of a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who spent nearly five years in prison before being released without charge.
Murat Kurnaz, a Turk who was born in Germany, was arrested during a trip to Pakistan in fall 2001 and delivered to US authorities in exchange for a payment of US$3,000.
Kurnaz spent several nightmarish weeks at the US base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, before being transferred to the US “war on terror” camp at Guantanamo.
US authorities determined in 2002 that Kurnaz had no terror links, but claimed that he remained a danger because one of his friends had committed a suicide attack — even though the friend in question is alive and has never been found to have terror ties.
Kurnaz was not released until mid-2006, and only after pressure on Washington from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs invited Kurnaz to testify via video conference as part of a hearing on Guantanamo detainees who are being considered for release but cannot find a host country to take them.
Taking into account the difference in time between the US and Europe, it was already late in Germany by the time committee speaker Democrat Bill Delahunt gave Kurnaz an opportunity to speak.
Kurnaz began to speak, but a technical difficulty prevented the audio from reaching Washington.
Some reporters and members of the public gave up waiting, but after around a half hour Kurnaz was able to be heard — and he recounted some of the horrific details of his travail.
“I did nothing wrong and I was treated like a monster,” he said, describing acts of torture such as being suspended by his wrists for hours on end, receiving electrical shocks and enduring simulated drowning.
“I know others have died from this kind of treatment,” he said.
“I suffered from sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, religious and sexual humiliations. I was beaten multiple times,” he said. “There was no law in Guantanamo.”
Facing the screen, the majority of seats for committee members sat empty. Barely half a dozen lawmakers came to listen to the former detainee and most were unable to remember his name, with one even calling him “Mr Karzai.”
The first to speak after Kurnaz was finished was ranking member on the committee, Representative Dana Rohrabacher, who expressed doubts about the testimony and recalled that the US was “at war” and needed to protect itself even at the price of making some errors.
And when it came to the question of where former inmates should go when their home country refuses them, Rohrabacher said: “I would suggest that any of our allies who have criticized the US should take some of them themselves.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of