In 2001 19-year-old Murat Kurnaz, a Turk born in Bremen, Germany, traveled to Pakistan to study Islam. He was just about to be married and he wanted to learn more about what was expected of him as a Muslim husband. In November, just as he was to board a plane home, Pakistani intelligence agents arrested him and turned him over to the U.S. military. 

As in many other cases, Uncle Sam paid a $3,000 bounty for the hapless Kurnaz, who then spent two months in an Afghan secret prison in Kandahar.  There he was tortured by both American and German interrogators. The worst was electric shock treatment, water boarding, and being strung up by his hands.  Secret prisons in Afghanistan have the dubious distinction of being the site of the most detainee deaths, very few of them due to "natural causes" as initially reported.

Kurnaz was then flown to Guantanomo (Gitmo), where he spent the next five years.  Those were the early years at the prison when the conditions were most inhumane.  It is significant that when the U.S. wanted more out of Iraqi detainees, it was the Gitmo commander Major General Geoffrey who was chosen to "improve" interrogation techniques at Abu Ghairab. Geoffrey was especially keen on capitalizing the Arabs' fear of dogs.  He was once quoted as saying that detainees deserved to be treated "like dogs."

Kurnaz said he was surprised to learn that even a Gitmo guard knew about the bounty program.  The guard complained that the U.S. was not getting its money's worth because so little information was obtained from him.

While at Gitmo Kurnaz was interrogated by German agents in 2002, and they concluded that he was innocent and had been picked up by mistake. Nevertheless, Kurnaz was not returned to Germany until a new government came to power in 2006.

Sources are National Public Radio Interview on Talk of the Nation (April 9, 2008) and Amnesty International Report (Spring 2008).