The mom of a German-born Guantánamo Bay detainee held on the camp for six years and tortured has mentioned she continues to be ready for an apology or compensation as a brand new movie sheds gentle on a narrative she says stays an “open wound”.
In Rabiye Kurnaz vs George W Bush,which premiered on the Berlin movie competition on Saturday, the director, Andreas Dresen, whose socially engaged film-making has led him to be described as Germany’s reply to Ken Loach, revisits the case of Murat Kurnaz, who was arrested with out rationalization in Pakistan in October 2001, a month after the 9/11 assaults.
Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen born and raised in Bremen who says he had travelled to Lahore to check the Qur’an at a college affiliated with the ultra-orthodox Tablighi Jamaat missionary motion, was handed over to the US despite the fact that he had no ties to al-Qaida nor had he visited a terrorist camp. He spent 1,600 days enduring varied types of torture at Guantánamo.
Kurnaz performs a walk-on half within the movie however its focus is on the story of his mom, Rabiye – performed by the comic Meltem Kaptan – and Bernhard Docke (Alexander Scheer), the lawyer she gained over to battle for her son’s launch.
Aided by the British actor and activist Vanessa Redgrave, Kurnaz grew to become one of many distinguished faces of a class-action go well with within the US that ultimately gained her son the precise to authorized illustration from the supreme courtroom.
Fifteen years after Kurnaz was reunited along with her son in August 2006, her lawyer has mentioned the blame for his shopper’s miscarriage nonetheless lies above all with the US. “President George W Bush arrange an offshore authorized vacuum within the Caribbean and destroyed all of the procedural safeguards the western world has identified for the reason that age of Enlightenment,” Docke instructed the Guardian in an interview.
Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have been held as “enemy combatants”. “They have been handled like outlaws within the center ages,” mentioned Docke. “As a result of they rejected our legal guidelines, the argument went, they didn't deserve the safety of our authorized system both.” Thirty-nine prisoners stay within the camp, greater than 20 years after it first opened.
Kurnaz, nonetheless, additionally locations blame for her son’s ordeal with the nation she has lived in since she was 14. “I maintain the German authorities chargeable for what occurred,” she instructed the Guardian. “They need to have acted extra shortly. In spite of everything, Murat was born right here.”
Three German intelligence brokers interrogated Kurnaz at Guantánamo a 12 months into his detention and got here to the conclusion he was harmless and didn't pose a menace to nationwide safety. In line with cables cited by the information journal Der Spiegel, neither the Pentagon nor the CIA objected to the thought of releasing Kurnaz to Germany, however the Social Democrat-Inexperienced German authorities in energy on the time didn't act and the then 20-year-old continued to be subjected to torture on the camp.
“As an alternative of utilizing that likelihood for a humanitarian act, to assist Murat Kurnaz escape torture and provides him a good trial, Germany rejected the US provide and withdrew his rights to residency and return,” mentioned Docke. “Germany wasn’t chargeable for Kurnaz’s torture, nevertheless it was chargeable for his illness lasting loads longer than it ought to have. This guilt has not been recognised in any means.”
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, re-elected as Germany’s largely ceremonial president on Sunday, was chief of employees on the German chancellory on the time and thus tasked with coordinating ties between the nation’s home and overseas intelligence companies. In line with Der Spiegel, Berlin conveyed to Washington in November 2002 its “specific want” that Kurnaz wouldn't be returned to Germany.
In 2007, Steinmeier denied there had been an “official provide” from the US, whereas stating it was proper to think about the Guantánamo detainee a safety threat on the time.
“Steinmeier has a darkish stain on his conscience, and he doesn’t have the decency to confess it,” mentioned Docke. “As president, you are supposed to have ethical authority, and for my part he's not as much as that job if he doesn’t appropriate the errors of the previous.”
Kurnaz mentioned she remained grateful to the previous German chancellor Angela Merkel, below whose tenure Murat was launched. “Merkel introduced my little one again to Germany. For me, she was one of the best.”
The pair additionally criticised the Turkish authorities, which had taken in different Guantánamo internees and monitored Kurnaz’s case however failed to interact itself for his launch. It was fast to rediscover Kurnaz as one in every of its residents after he returned to Germany. “In the future after he had returned to Bremen, there was a letter from the Turkish consulate … reprimanding him for not doing his compulsory navy service,” mentioned Docke.
Rabiye Kurnaz vs George W Bush good points comedian mileage by taking part in up the cultural variations between the housewife-lawyer pair from northern Germany: Docke zips between courtroom dates on a rusty outdated bike, whereas Kurnaz roars round Bremen in a large Mercedes Benz, her tires screeching. “The Germans are sensible however gradual,” her character tells a buddy within the movie. “You already know the saying: ‘Begin it like a Turk, however end it like a German.’”
In actual life, the pair mentioned, they have been much less of a research in contrasts, Docke’s legislation agency a bit much less provincial and with extra experience within the US justice system, and Kurnaz’s house a bit extra tidy.
One of many movie’s greatest comedian moments, nonetheless, was actual, they each verify. After Murat Kurnaz’s return to Germany had ultimately been secured, his mom and lawyer have been to announce their triumph at a press convention. However with minutes to go, Rabiye was nowhere to be discovered.
Her mission on the worldwide stage full, she had reassumed her maternal position and gone procuring to seek out new garments for her son as an alternative. “We have been so irritated on the time, however afterwards we couldn’t cease laughing,” mentioned Docke.
Murat Kurnaz, who now works with younger folks as a social employee at an outside sports activities centre in Bremen, had seen the movie and loved it, his mom mentioned.
However she mentioned she struggled to hitch within the laughter in the course of the screening. “It took me proper again to that point, and typically that made it tough to snicker. However a smile, sure, perhaps I can smile about it typically.”
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