German citizen Murat Kurnaz gave a talk in the Junction on Bishop Street about his book 'Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo' on Wednesday evening.

Murat, who is originally from Bremen, was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 after he had completed a training course with an Islamic group which helps youngsters hooked on drugs.

He was stopped on his way to the airport by Pakistani police and, after a short detention in Afghanistan, spent the majority of his five years of detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Murat, who was aged only 19 when he was arrested, was finally released in August 2006.

"I have lost many friends through drugs," he said."I went to Pakistan to visit a school training you how to help people who are having problems with drugs.

"I spent six weeks there and was ready to come home around Chistmas time. I was close to the airport when we reached a checkpoint and because of my light skin colour the police pulled us over.

"I was taken to prison that night before being taken to an underground prison where I was interogated by the US government.I was then taken to a base in Kandahar in Afghanistan."

It was while Murat was held in Afghanistan that he first experienced torture at the hand of his US captors.

"Because they didn't have any evidence against me they brought paperwork and tried to get me to sign it.They then hung me in chains from the ceiling of an aircrft hanger for five days.

"Interrogators came every day, sometimes twice a day. I started to pass out because of the pain. Another guy in front of me died, he couldn't take it.

"When I wouldn't give them what they wanted they tried electric shocks and then moved on to water boarding. They finally told me they were going to shoot me. After three months they blindfolded me and put me on a plane to Guantanamo Bay."

Murat says that Guantanamo is not a prison but a myriad of camps.

"When I arrived they put me in a small cage," he said. "I thought that I was only being put in there to get changed. At that point I didn't even know what country I was in.

"There are eight different camps. In some you can talk to your neighbours, in others you are kept in solitary confinement."

The devout Muslim said that beatings and tortue became a daily routine.

"The youngest prisoner in Guantanamo was nine years-old and the oldest was 105," he said."Every time the guards came to the man who was 105 he couldn't make out what they were saying. They said he was not following the rules and regularly beat him up. I saw many people die or get killed right in front of me. I knew I could be next."

Murat says that it was his faith that gave him the mental strength to survive in captivity.

"I never said to myself that I would not go home one day," he said.