GERMAN PAPER SAYS INTELLIGENCE SERVICES BENEFITED FROM US PRISON CAMP INTERROGATIONS
BBC Monitoring International Reports - November 18, 2006 Saturday

Text of report by German news agency ddp on 18 November

Berlin: The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has clearly cooperated with the American side in prisoner interrogations at US prison camps to a much greater extent than previously thought. The Berliner Zeitung (Saturday [ 18 November] edition), which cites classified documents, reports that the US side had on several occasions given to the BND documents and interrogation results from prison camps in Tuzla, Bosnia, and Kandahar, Afghanistan.

According to the paper, one of the documents is a report by a senior BND officer appointed deputy head of the German secret service's Genic unit in Sarajevo between May and September 2001. In connection with the arrest and brutal mistreatment of German Egyptian Abdel-Halim Khafagy, who wrongfully ended up in the US prison camp in Tuzla, Bosnia, on suspicion of terrorism in September 2001, the BND officer indicated that he had forwarded to BND headquarters "extensive material" which in part was "extremely bloodstained". US soldiers confiscated the material from the German Egyptian.

In his report, the BND officer also voiced the assumption that German secret service agents from the BND and the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) could have participated in Khafagy's interrogations, as well as those of other US prisoners in Tuzla.

The paper also reports that in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where the US Army has a prison camp, the BND has benefited from interrogations. Citing a secret report by Defence Ministry State Secretary Peter Wichert to the relevant expert committee of the Bundestag, the paper says that in at least one case the BND received a CD or diskette with results of prisoner interrogations. According to Wichert, photos and lists of prisoners' names might also have been on that data carrier.

The content of the data carrier was conveyed to both the Armed Forces Centre for Intelligence (ZNBw), directed by BND officials, and to the BND headquarters. According to Wichert, "in spite of intensive requests", the data had not been located at either the BND or the ZNBw.

Source: ddp news agency, Berlin, in German 0144 gmt 18 Nov 06

Copyright 2006 Financial Times Information
Copyright 2006 BBC Monitoring/BBC Source: Financial Times Information Limited

Posted for Fair Use only.