Military Largely Exonerates Terror Suspect
March 28, 2005The Washington Post reported Sunday that newly declassified government documents relating to Murat Kurnaz, a German national being held at Guantanamo, show he has no ties to the al Qaeda terror network after the US authorities had said he was an al Qaeda member. A military tribunal determined last fall that Kurnaz, seized in Pakistan in 2001, was a member of Al Qaeda and an enemy combatant whom the US government could detain indefinitely at Guantanamo. But, according to the Post, the declassified documents obtained by the newspaper show the US military and German authorities had largely concluded there was no information that linked Kurnaz to al Qaeda, any other terrorist organization or terrorist activities. However, his detention has been backed by a "brief, unsupported memo" written by an unidentified US government official, the paper added.