On CBS News’ 60 Minutes tonight, Scott Pelley interviewed German resident Murnat Kurnaz about his time held by the U.S. military as an unlawful enemy combatant, including several years at Guantanamo Bay.
Pelley’s report leaves the impression that the Kurnaz case is, pure and simple, the story of a completely innocent man caught up in a corrupt and arbitrary system of U.S. military justice.
Writing in World Politics Review in June 2007, John Rosenthal describes how Kurnaz’s case received similar treatment in the German media. Facts that cast doubt on Kurnaz’s credibility, and several aspects of his claims of innocence, were widely ignored.
To get a fuller picture of the Kurnaz case than is possible by watching 60 Minutes, read Rosenthal’s “Guantanamo Tales: Murnat Kurnaz in the German Media,” and see also Rosenthal’s translation of a summary of the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigations’ file on Kurnaz and his connections to extremists in Germany.