BERLIN - A parliamentary committee will probe claims that German special forces in Afghanistan abused a prisoner who was later held for four years in the US Guantanamo Bay jail, politicians said on Thursday.
Murat Kurnaz, a German-born Turk, was arrested by US forces in Pakistan shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
US investigators claimed he was an "enemy combatant" with links to Al-Qaeda and he was transferred to a US prison in the Afghan city of Kandahar before being incarcerated in Guantanamo.
He was released this year because of a lack of proof that he had belonged to a terrorist organisation.
Kurnat, 24, has claimed he was physically beaten by German soldiers in Afghanistan, but the German government said on Wednesday that while there was proof of "verbal contact" it had found nothing to back up his more serious claims.
Senior members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government said the parliamentary defence committee would now look into the matter.
"The accusations that Kurnaz has made against members of the army's KSK special forces must be cleared up quickly and without reserve," Merkel's Christian Democrats and their coalition partners, the Social Democrats, said in a joint statement.
10/19/2006 14:14 GMT