The Fog Thickens

Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on Thursday waded into the deepening controversy surrounding German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier for his role in the four-and-a-half-year imprisonment of Guantanamo Bay of a German-born Turk.

The case has focused intense scrutiny on the human rights record of the centre-left government of former chancellor Schröder, for whom Steinmeier was chief of staff until 2005.

In an interview with German newspaper Bild on Thursday, Schröder came out strongly in support of Steinmeier.

"In the situation of the time he (Steinmeier) acted absolutely correctly and in sync with the political line that was my responsibility," Schröder said, adding that he would have taken the exact same decisions in light of the atmosphere and events of the time.

The former chancellor said he was not informed personally about the case of Murat Kurnaz, who was seized by US forces in Pakistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2002. "But I take responsibility for the then security policy," he said.

Schröder pointed out that given the fear of further attacks in the wake of the Sept. 11 atrocity, Germany's internal security had the highest priority at the time, along with a strict regard for legal principles and human rights.

"In light of the fact that a few perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks had lived in Germany, we had to be highly alert," he said.

Steinmeier to testify on March 8

Schröder's defense of Steinmeier will be a welcome respite for the foreign minister who is increasingly under pressure over the Kurnaz case.

Steinmeier faces allegations of not having done enough, and in certain cases having blocked, Kurnaz' release from the US prison camp on Cuba. The German-born Turkish national, who has claimed he was abused and tortured in the prison, was released last year after the intervention of current Chancellor Angela Merkel.

On Thursday, it emerged that Steinmeier, who has consistently rejected any allegations of wrongdoing, will be testifying on March 8 before an independent parliamentary committee set up to investigate the case. Critics have complained that given the mounting evidence which points to Steinmeier's role in the affair, the foreign minister should testify earlier than March.

The glare of the media increased on the minister this week when a German court issued arrest warrants for 13 people in connection with the alleged CIA-backed kidnapping of a Lebanese-born German citizen, Khaled el-Masri.

Minister rebuffs allegations

In the latest of a series of interviews to defend his actions, Steinmeier said claims that the German government received a formal offer from the US administration to free Kurnaz in 2002 were "made-up."

He told Die Zeit weekly newspaper that Washington had simply suggested cutting a deal with Kurnaz to use him to infiltrate extremist Muslim groups in Germany. The German government rejected the idea on the advice of security experts and the foreign intelligence services, Steinmeier said.

He said it was easy to forget the highly charged atmosphere at the time, with the West bracing for Islamist attacks. The German government had "the responsibility to ensure that no further attacks took place," Steinmeier told Die Zeit. He pointed out that Germany has to this day remained free from a major terrorist attack since the suicide hijackings of September 11.

Merkel's grand coalition of conservatives and Social Democrats is closing ranks around Steinmeier, a member of the Social Democratic Party.

Thomas de Maiziere, a conservative who now holds Steinmeier's old job of chief of staff at the chancellery, warned against harshly judging the Kurnaz case in hindsight.

"It is very easy with the witness statements and documents to judge the incident four or five years later. But it is far harder to make decisions at a highly complex point in time," he said.

Three members of the German intelligence services who questioned Kurnaz in Guantanamo were to give evidence on Thursday to the parliamentary committee investigating the case.