From Gitmo To Congress

Murat Kurnaz, a German national detained for years by the US after his innocence was clear, will testify today. His account of torture at Gitmo exceeds any that I have heard of and rightly evokes skepticism:

“They used to beat me when my head is underwater.

They beat me into my stomach and everything,” so that he’d have to take a breath while underwater, he said.

He also accused his keepers of electrically shocking him until he was numb and chaining him to the roof of an aircraft hangar for five days, only bringing him down so that a doctor could examine him.

The Defense Department has denied his allegations of abuse, calling them “not only unsubstantiated and implausible [but] simply outlandish.”

Let's hope that this time the Pentagon is telling the truth. A Sixty Minutes report on Kurnaz can be read here.