I have met Murat Kurnaz (once, at the launch of his book, Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantánamo), and I also appeared once with him on Al-Jazeera (in 2008). I have also discussed his case, in my book The Guantánamo Files, and in my articles, Murat Kurnaz: Five Years in Guantánamo and Former Guantánamo detainees speak: Murat Kurnaz, Mamdouh Habib and Abdur Rahim Muslim Dost (in 2007), and in 2008 I reported his opinions about the deaths of three men at Guantánamo, in mysterious circumstances, on June 9, 2006, which the authorities described as a triple suicide. He is also mentioned in a UN report on secret detention that I worked on (which was published last year), and in a Human Rights Watch report on European complicity in torture, which I discussed last July.

In the interview, Kurnaz explained that the American government has not apologized for his years of wrongful imprisonment, and that he doubts they ever will. The question of liability — and compensation — is hugely important, but it is, of course, absolutely certain that lawyers will always advise US government officials never to admit responsibility for wrongdoing, and it is therefore probable that the struggle for compensation — or even a simple apology — will take many years.

Running through the story of his capture, Kurnaz explained that he was seized on a bus in Pakistan, far from the battlefields of Afghanistan, where he had been visiting a school run by Jamaat al-Tablighi, the vast missionary organization that has millions of members worldwide and does not involve itself in politics. Kurnaz added that the organization was actually despised by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban for its non-political stance, even though, at Guantánamo, it was regarded as being a front for terrorist activities, and he explained that he had become aware of the organization in Germany, through its assistance to homeless people and young people with drug problems.

Describing how he was seized on a bus, he said that the Pakistani forces who singled him out for particular attention didn’t initially tell him what was going on. "They didn’t tell me that they were looking for terrorists or whatever. They said we’re just going to check your passport," he said. "I didn’t know at that time they get a bounty of $3,000 for each person. Not under my name, but for anyone turned over to the Americans as a terrorist they get $3,000, and $3,000 in Pakistan is a lot of money."

After he was transferred to US custody at Kandahar, Kurnaz said, he witnessed all manner of things that can appropriately be described as torture. "I saw many killed under torture," he said, adding, "I was one of those who survived those kinds of torture. They used electroshocks on me because I would not sign papers. I was forced to agree I was a member of the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda and I said I’m not. Really I didn’t know at that time what Al-Qaeda was, I didn’t know about Al-Qaeda. So when they asked me about Al-Qaeda and Taliban, I said I’m not a member of them. And they brought me papers, forced me to sign. I refused."

"That’s why they tried to make me sign by electroshocks," he added. "And another time they forced me by waterboarding [probably repeated dunking in water as a form of drowning, rather than waterboarding as such]."

"Another time," he said, "they hanged me on chains. I was hanging on the ceiling. They were pulling me on the ceiling with the chain, and until my feet were over the floor. After a few days I started to pass out, because in that situation I couldn’t eat or drink and it was freezing cold. It was during wintertime and I had no clothes on."

Kurnaz also explained that he was he was fascinated by animals, and that, in Guantánamo, there were animals he had never seen before, but he added that when he fed an iguana (famously a protected species in Guantanamo, with soldiers liable for a fine of $10,000 if they accidentally  run one over and kill it), he was punished for feeding one. "I was hiding a piece of my bread," he said, "and I was feeding them. When they [the guards] saw it, I got punished by 30 days of isolation in the darkness because I was feeding animals."

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, details about the new documentary film, "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo" (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, on tour in the UK throughout 2011, and available on DVD here — or here for the US), my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.