BERLIN, March 29 (UPI) -- Faced with calls for his resignation, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier Thursday sat through a grilling from a German parliamentary inquiry probing the case of former Guantanamo inmate Murat Kurnaz.
The inquiry is aimed at finding out whether the former German government did enough to free Kurnaz -- a German resident with Turkish nationality -- from the U.S. military prison in Cuba.
Steinmeier, who was chief of staff for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, allegedly was the key man in the decision to refuse Kurnaz's release to Germany after such an offer came from Washington.
Lawmakers from the opposition Left Party had called for the resignation of Steinmeier, one of the most popular and most important figures of Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition government.
In an hourlong opening statement, Steinmeier tried to take wind out of the opposition's sails, calling the allegations against the former government and him "absurd and baseless" and said they were not responsible for prolonging Kurnaz's four-and-a-half year stay at Guantanamo.
"If the U.S. had offered to release Murat Kurnaz, then nobody -- and certainly not the German federal government -- could have or would have wanted to prevent it," Steinmeier said.
An official or unofficial U.S. offer to Berlin to release Kurnaz "didn't exist," he said, but added that his government, when having heard rumors that Kurnaz could be part of a wave of inmates to be released in late 2002, discussed the man's case in a top-level meeting in the chancellor's office. There, Steinmeier met with the leaders from the German intelligence and criminal prosecution scene, all of whom were convinced that Kurnaz posed a security risk and should be denied entry into Germany.
The prosecution office in Bremen, the northern German city where Kurnaz was born and raised, had started investigating him in late 2002, shortly after Kurnaz had left Germany for Pakistan. Without informing his mother, Rabiye, who was worried that her son could do "something wrong" during his trip, Kurnaz flew to Pakistan on Oct. 3, 2002, less than a month after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and days before the United States went to war with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Ahead of the trip, Kurnaz's family members -- who are predominantly secular -- observed that the 21-year-old had become increasingly religious. After a few weeks, Kurnaz was arrested by Pakistani police and turned over to the Americans, who kept him in Afghanistan and a few weeks later transferred him to Guantanamo.
"We unanimously came to the conclusion that it was necessary to protect the security of Germany's citizens and that Kurnaz -- in case of a release -- would be released to Turkey, rather than to Germany," Steinmeier said.
Despite that security assessment, the German government, because of humanitarian reasons and Guantanamo's dubious legal status, "starting in early 2002 has repeatedly inquired with Washington on behalf of Murat Kurnaz," Steinmeier said. "But the United States at no point in time was willing to be influenced by someone else." While the opposition believes the German refusal to take back Kurnaz prolonged the man's stay in Guantanamo, Steinmeier said Berlin did in no way prevent a release of Kurnaz.
Former Interior Minister Otto Schily, who was questioned before Steinmeier, in the morning had tried his best to shield his party colleague from the opposition's attacks. Schily, a former lawyer who in the late 1970s defended several far-left terrorists, said he was sure that his Interior Ministry staff, security officials and the chancellor's office acted "correctly" and cited Steinmeier as one of the "most capable politicians Germany has ever produced."
If the inquiry was to come to a negative verdict, "then blame me," Schily said. "I gladly take on full responsibility."
That's easy to say for Schily, the only person involved in the scandal who has retired from politics.
Wolfgang Neskovic, an inquiry member from Germany's far-left Left Party, said Schily's testimony was worthless because the former minister had left politics. "If Schily today takes over responsibility, this can't be taken seriously," Neskovic said.
In his testimony, Schily was not much of a help to the inquiry, as he said he didn't remember any details relating to the Kurnaz case. He refuted allegations that Germany prolonged the man's stay in Guantanamo, adding that "the Americans" were responsible for the man's plight, not Berlin.
Schily agreed with Steinmeier's assessment of Kurnaz: "Murat Kurnaz may have been misguided by someone else, but he wasn't harmless."
The former interior minister added that Washington had assured him that torture didn't happen in Guantanamo. He was even told that some of the released inmates had completed "an apprenticeship" in the U.S. prison.
Steinmeier said only in early 2006 did the U.S. position on Kurnaz change; growing domestic pressure over Guantanamo gave rise to an altered strategy to reduce the number of inmates there.
"For the first time, Washington was willing to talk about civil rights questions," Steinmeier said.
Kurnaz was released in August 2006 after Merkel intervened with U.S. President George W. Bush for the man's fate.
