The Sentence & The Torment
What happens when the system controls every aspect of your life? See bits and pieces of the torment that has been inflicted on Werner Kunkel by a system that knows he's innocent, but wants him to suffer anyway.
He went on a hunger strike and took it a very long ways. Months. The only hope he has is the sister who has never abandoned him, his attorneys who work without him being able to pay them, and a couple of people on the outside who have taken up his cause. He has since ending the hunger strike, clung to shreds of hope that the Truth will set him free. However, the Truth would condemn the very people who put him here.
The Hunger Strike
Werner, in his own words
12 days before my trial I was offered a plea proposal of 10 years in exchange for a guilty plea. With earned good time I would have been released over 25 years ago!!
Outrageously in August 2010 I was falsely accused by prison authourities of possessing escape paraphernalia and tortured in Solitary Confinement for almost 3 years being refused medical treatment with a broken neck/whiplash injury, which after 3 unsuccessful spinal operations has caused permanent disabilities.
Incredulously which in this moment not receiving adequate medical care still today! On June 3, 2011, because I am a German citizen, I was ordered deported by an U.S. Immigration Judge. It begs the question: why has my deportation been refused by North Dakota authorities now even 14 years later?
In 2015 when I was eligible for parole, the State of North Dakota rescheduled my parole hearing for over 10 years later until 2025.
In 2017, after serving 22 years, the State of North Dakota promised the facilitation to transfer me to a prison in Germany to serve out the remainder of my sentence. This turned into yet another lie and cruel manipulation because after a few years of processing, the approved transfer to a German prison was abruptly rescinded by Washington D.C. due to intervention by the prejudicial prosecuters from my 1995 trial!
In early 2020 I reported a medical emergency in my lower back which confined me to a wheelchair with excruciating pain. Like in 2010, I was denied proper medical care for almost 4 years causing further physical disabilities.
Subsequently to a 4th spinal operation on November 13, 2023 I am being tortured by being denied the pain medication that is instead afforded and incredulously dispensed rather shockingly to prisoners who are drug addicts instead!
Due to good behavior the State of North Dakota, on May 3, 2022, granted my release for November 10, 2022. On November 1, 2022 the State of North Dakota afforded a medical release physical in preperation to my Germany repatriation.
Being denied corrective surgery, I was shamefully being returned to Germany still confined to a wheelchair. The very next day on November 2, 2022, only 8 days prior to my departure to Germany, in evil callous disregard without explanation or moral decency and in arrogant disregard to any basic human element the State of North Dakota rescinded my parole, postponing another parole hearing for 3 more years.
The United States, like a cry baby stomping it's feet in temper tantrums, stumble upon the world claiming victimization by Russia and Iran for imprisoning American citizens.
Britney Griner's recent drug conviction case in Russia is a clear example of this. The U.S. cries foul with additional apprehensions of recent cases currently going on inside Russia and Iran. Isn't that like the pot calling the kettle black? At least American prisoners/detainees are not being physically and mentally tortured like I am, forced to endure without any reasonable relief in sight.
My continued incarceration after I was legitimately granted parole on May 3, 2022 is obviously no longer a matter of Crime, Punishment, Redemption or Rehabilitation but displayed in vivid clarity a political matter.
For 30 horrible years every day that I wake up surrounded by concrete and steel, it's as though I awake confined lying prone in a tiny box. In this dark restricted space I struggle with my hand down to my pants pocket to retrieve a cigarette lighter to ascertain my surroundings.
My only companion, this tiny flicker of light, reveals that I am locked in a coffin buried alive 6 feet under the ground, running out of air struggling to breath. When my parole was rescinded in such a continuing evil manner 8 days prior to my release on November 2, 2022 my cigarette lighter ran out of fuel and now I lie in this abyss of darkness waiting to expire.
Not only as a German national, but more so as a human being. If I am going to be murdered by American authorities using the context of prison coffin, I choose to die on my own terms, rather than some undersirable mongrel dog thrown in a filthy cage forced to lie injured adjacent to his empty dish waiting to be euthanized, I choose to die like a man standing on his own 2 feet with dignity.
Therefore, as of February 21, 2024 I hereby announce my hunger strike. A hunger strike that will continue to death until such time I am either transferred to a German prison so I can receive proper medical attention to serve out the remainder of my sentence as promised in 2017 or have the parole granted on May 3, 2022 be justly reinstated.