German minister under fire over former-Guantanamo inmate

BERLIN, Jan 21 (Reuters) Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier came under increasing pressure at the weekend to respond to reports he helped block the release of a German-born Turkish man detained for five years without charge.

German media reports said the previous government of Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens to which Steinmeier belonged sought to prevent the release of Murat Kurnaz, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 and later sent to Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Kurnaz, dubbed the ''Bremen Taliban'', was held by the United States as a terror suspect and was in the process of becoming a German citizen when first arrested. He was freed in August 2006.

Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, was chief of staff to former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who left office in November 2005.

ARD state television and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily both said documents from the Foreign Ministry from late October 2005 showed Steinmeier was against Kurnaz coming back to Germany.

They added that German security forces had made a secret appeal to Washington for any further intelligence that would support terrorism charges against Kurnaz, who is now 24.

ARD said today that the United States offered to release Kurnaz in 2002, but Germany declined the offer.

Steinmeier has been criticised for his previous role since reports emerged Germany secretly aided a US programme to kidnap and fly terrorism suspects around the world.

Aside from mediating as a peacemaker in West Asia, Steinmeier has played a key role in European Union efforts to resolve the controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear programme.

The minister has not commented on the allegations he was involved in delaying the release of Kurnaz, but has said he will testify to a parliamentary committee investigating the matter.

Siegfried Kauder, a Christian Democrat who chairs the committee, told Die Welt that if the claims turned out to be true, then action would have to be taken.

SPD lawmaker Niels Annen told the Frankfurter Rundschau the accusations against Steinmeier were ''serious''.

REUTERS MQA BST0107