local git clone problem

Hello.

I'm trying to clone a local git repository and it fails:

nikita@blacky:~/linux-2.6> git clone -l -s -n . ../new
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/nikita/new/.git/
/usr/bin/git-clone: line 381: cd: /home/nikita/new/.git/refs/remotes/origin: No such file or directory

The command is [almost] from git-clone(1) examples.

Examining .git in the new directory after the error:

nikita@blacky:~/new> ls -aR
.:
./  ../  .git/

./.git:
./  ../  branches/  config  description  HEAD  hooks/  info/  objects/  refs/

./.git/branches:
./  ../

./.git/hooks:
./   applypatch-msg  post-commit   post-update     pre-commit  update
../  commit-msg      post-receive  pre-applypatch  pre-rebase

./.git/info:
./  ../  exclude

./.git/objects:
./  ../  info/  pack/

./.git/objects/info:
./  ../  alternates

./.git/objects/pack:
./  ../

./.git/refs:
./  ../  heads/  tags/

./.git/refs/heads:
./  ../

./.git/refs/tags:
... (same as in .git/refs/tags/ of the original directory)

Looks like for some reason, .git/refs/remotes in the new directory is
not created, but referenced.

Original repository was created by 'git init' and then populated with several
'git remote add' and 'git remote update' commands.

This is with debian package git-core 1:1.5.2.1-1~bpo.1 (current debian
etch-backports version)

Is this a bug?
If not, what I'm doing wrong?
Is it possible to manually 'fix' the original directory such that local
clones from it will become possible?

Nikita