torn sheet in their mouths and other torn sheets binding their arms and legs. US authorities said these three prisoners had committed suicide. Although the US reported numerous suicide attempts, the only deaths reported by the US military at Guantanamo during the period when Kurnaz was detained were three suicides on 20 June 2006. The prisoners were two Saudi Arabians Mani al-Utaybi and Yasser al-Zahrani, and a Yemeni citizen, Ali Abdullah Ahmed. A State Department spokesman said the prisoners were apparently not aware that one was to be transferred to Saudi Arabia, although to be held in custody there, and another was to be released to Saudi Arabia. Human rights groups and defense lawyers called for investigation. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service conducted an investigation, releasing a heavily redacted report in 2008. In 2009 the law school at Seton Hall University released a study, alleging that DOD claimed the suicides in a coverup of homicides due to torture. In a joint investigation, reported in January 2010, Harper's Magazine and NBC News also alleged that the military had committed homicides in the course of torturing detainees and tried to cover up these three deaths. Release in 2006 Kurnaz believes that he was finally released because of German government diplomatic pressure, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel's face-to-face appeal to American President Bush. On 12 February 2006, Deutsche Welle reported that German authorities were negotiating Kurnaz's repatriation. The German magazine Focus reported in 2006 that the Bush administration was trying to tie the release of Kurnaz to Germany's agreeing to accept four other Guantanamo detainees. The USA had cleared approximately 120 detainees for release or transfer. But many could not be returned to their countries of origin. The German and American governments denied that Kurnaz's release had been tied to Germany accepting other detainees. Focus reported that the German government had agreed to accept one other detainee, not four. It said that the US had not informed the German government of the identities of the other detainees it wanted them to accept. Kurnaz was released on 24 August 2006. As during his arrival at Guantanamo, he was transported to his destination by plane, restrained in shackles and wearing a muzzle, opaque goggles, and sound-blocking ear-muffs, and denied food and water during the 17-hour flight. Life in Germany after release After his release, Kurnaz wrote and published his memoir Five Years of My Life: