Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo

Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo
by Murat Kurnaz

Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo
List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $14.09
You Save: $10.86 (44%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $11.95 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Murat Kurnaz
Edition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 0230603742
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Book Reviews of Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo

Book Review: Inside Gitmo
Summary: 5 Stars

It's rare (at my age, anyway!) for a book to keep me up all night. But Murat Kurnaz's memoir of his five years in the Guantanamo prison camp did just that. I spent most of the night hours reading it, alternately grateful that we finally have an insider's view of Gitmo and horrified at Kurnaz's descriptions of what he and the other prisoners endured. The rest of the night I spent pacing, too agitated by what I'd read to sleep. If even a small part of what Kurnaz says is true--and we have independent evidence that suggests his tale is accurate--the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo is indecent and, by any reasonable person's standard, illegal.

Kurnaz, a German-born (in 1982) Turk, traveled to Pakistan in late 2001 to study at a madrassa. Shortly thereafter, through a combination of false evidence, police corruption, alleged guilt by association, and bureaucratic incompetence, he was arrested and handed over to American military authorities. After a three-month imprisonment in Afghanistan, he was transferred to Gitmo, where he would stay until his exoneration and release in August 2006. (This despite the fact that the U.S. authorities quickly realized, as Kurnaz's lawyer, Baher Azmy, compellingly argues in the book's epilogue, that Kurnaz was innocent.)

Kurnaz's first three months in Gitmo were spent in Camp X-Ray, so called because the prisoners where in open air cages where everything was "completely transparent" to the scrutiny of the guards. The cages were 15 square feet (smaller than German requirements for caging animals), open to the weather as well as spiders, snakes, and scorpions. prisoners were irregularly fed, denied medical treatment, and given bad water to drink. They were also forbidden to stand, lie down during the day, or touch the sides of the cages. Breaking any rule brought swift retribution from the IRF, Immediate Reaction Force, whose members would quickly pepper-spray the offending prisoner and then beat him senseless. But spraying and beating could also come out of the blue. The point, Kurnaz quickly concluded, was to break prisoners and humiliate them--but also, at least in some cases, to provide guards an opportunity to vent (p. 147).

Transferred from open cages to cages within buildings--a new prison called Camp Delta--Kurnaz underwent regular and harsh interrogation, endured often uneatable food, participated in a couple of hunger strikes when the Koran was trampled by American guards, and suffered under a new policy of "maximum discomfort" initiated by a change of camp commanders. The new CO, General Geoffrey Miller, began Operation Sandman, intended to deprive prisoners of sleep by subjecting them to continuous cell rotations and loud heavy metal music. Rebelling against the physical abuse and the psych-ops mistreatments, Kurnaz was repeatedly thrown into solitary confinement--basically a "ship container with a door" whose temperature could be manipulated to be either frigid or suffocatingly hot (p. 161).

A particularly poignant moment in Kurnaz's imprisonment was when one of his American guards, conscience-stricken, confessed to him that the treatment of Gitmo prisoners constituted torture. On the day of his discharge from the military, the guard removed his MP armband and threw it on the ground (pp. 193-94). Other guards, indoctrinated before their tour of duty with films and lectures that described Gitmo prisoners as murderous prisoners, were brutal.

Kurnaz's story is horrifying, both because of its details and because it affirms what most of us uncomfortably have already pieced together--that prisoners are being tortured at Gitmo. How ironic that the logo over the Guantanamo gates says "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom" (p. 147).

Summary of Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo

In October 2001, nineteen-year-old Murat Kurnaz traveled to Pakistan to visit a madrassa. During a security check a few weeks after his arrival, he was arrested without explanation and for a bounty of $3,000, the Pakistani police sold him to U.S. forces. He was first taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was severely mistreated, and then two months later he was flown to Guantanamo as Prisoner #61. For more than 1,600 days, he was tortured and lived through hell. He was kept in a cage and endured daily interrogations, solitary confinement, and sleep deprivation. Finally, in August 2006, Kurnaz was released, with acknowledgment of his innocence. Told with lucidity, accuracy, and wisdom, Kurnaz's story is both sobering and poignant--an important testimony about our turbulent times when innocent people get caught in the crossfire of the war on terrorism.

Political Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Political Books
Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World ImageChasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
by Samantha Power
Penguin Press HC, The; Published: 2008-02-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.75
Price in other shops: $32.95
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln ImageTeam of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2006-09-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.09
Price in other shops: $19.95
The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World ImageThe Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World
by Alan Greenspan
Penguin Press HC, The; Published: 2007-09-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.95
Price in other shops: $35.00
Never Give In: Battling Cancer in the Senate ImageNever Give In: Battling Cancer in the Senate
by Sen. Arlen Specter
Thomas Dunne Books; Published: 2008-03-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.87
Price in other shops: $24.95
Infidel ImageInfidel
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Free Press; Published: 2008-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops: $15.00
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! ImageDon't Start the Revolution Without Me!
by Jesse Ventura
Skyhorse Publishing; Published: 2008-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.58
Price in other shops: $24.95
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance ImageDreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
by Barack Obama
Crown; Published: 2007-01-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.81
Price in other shops: $25.95
The Revolution: A Manifesto ImageThe Revolution: A Manifesto
by Ron Paul
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2008-04-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.28
Price in other shops: $21.00
The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century ImageThe Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century
by Steve Coll
Penguin Press HC, The; Published: 2008-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.95
Price in other shops: $35.00
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream ImageThe Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
by Barack Obama
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2007-11-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.60
Price in other shops: $14.95
Similar Books and other products
Guantanamo's Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr ImageGuantanamo's Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr
by Michelle Shephard
Wiley; Published: 2008-04-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.50
Price in other shops: $27.95
Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines ImageTweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines
by Nic Sheff
Ginee Seo Books; Published: 2008-02-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.29
Price in other shops: $16.99
The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict ImageThe Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict
by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Linda J. Bilmes
W. W. Norton; Published: 2008-03-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.06
Price in other shops: $22.95
The Last Lecture ImageThe Last Lecture
by Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow
Hyperion; Published: 2008-04-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.07
Price in other shops: $21.95
The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot ImageThe End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
by Naomi Wolf
Chelsea Green Publishing; Published: 2007-09-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.62
Price in other shops: $13.95
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism ImageThe Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
by Naomi Klein
Metropolitan Books; Published: 2007-09-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.37
Price in other shops: $28.00
Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power ImageGuantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power
by Joseph Margulies
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2007-07-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.29
Price in other shops: $15.00
Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar ImageEnemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar
by Moazzam Begg
New Press; Published: 2007-09-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops: $18.95
The Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Fighting the Lawless World of Guantanamo Bay ImageThe Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Fighting the Lawless World of Guantanamo Bay
by Clive Stafford Smith
Nation Books; Published: 2007-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.30
Price in other shops: $25.95
The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 759 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison ImageThe Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 759 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison
by Andy Worthington
Pluto Press; Published: 2007-09-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.66
Price in other shops: $24.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories