- How Murat Kurnaz ended up in Guantanamo Bay is a mysterious story. 5 YEARS investigates the psychological aspect of this endless and unjustified "imprisonment" where Kurnaz had to endure never ending physical and psychological torture.
- Imagine you are 19 years old. School is over, driving license in the pocket, first love, you live on your own... It's an overall sensation of freedom and the feeling no one can stop you! Most people remember this period of time, when they were 24, 25 years old, as the best time of their life with the most impact. Now imagine this period of your life gets wiped out. Five years gone - snatched away from you. Instead you get arrested and tortured in a cell of six square meters in the US detention facility of Guantanamo Bay. No explanation as to why. No evidence. No trial. And with no hope to ever come free. Inconceivable. Unthinkable. This is exactly what happened to Murat Kurnaz (Sascha Alexander Gersak), a young man from Bremen (Germany) of Turkish parentage.
"Can you remember the last time you were alone - I mean, really alone? No one to talk to, nothing to read, no phone, no computer, no iPod, no television, no radio, no activity, no companion? Psychiatrists say that if you try this, you should not do it for longer than a day!", says lawyer Sabin Willet 2008 in a hearing in front of the Committee for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights, Washington D.C. Murat Kurnaz put up with it for much longer! In fact, he put up with it for exactly 1727 days in prison - in the US detention facility of Guantanamo Bay - including one year of complete isolation.
Murat Kurnaz gets interrogated, mistreated, humiliated and tortured. He is supposed to confess an alleged collaboration with the Taliban combats in Afghanistan. He never saw a regular court or ever got officially charged for a verdict, let alone did he have the opportunity to defend him self. He had to wait. He had nothing else left to do. 5 YEARS is not only the story of Murat Kurnaz, but the story of the Guantanamo system, a system that leads itself ad absurdum. To tell that story, Murat Kurnaz is the ideal protagonist. His "hero's journey" let's us understand, how the system spins round and undermines the rule of law, which it is actually supposed to be defending.
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