Lawsuit claims CIA kidnapped, tortured German man

BERLIN - When Khaled al Masri took the bus from Ulm to Macedonia two years ago, his only objective was to cool off after a row with his wife.

But his troubles were only beginning.

At the Serb-Macedonian border crossing he was hauled off the coach and handed over to three men in civilian clothes carrying handguns.

His name - identical to one of the 11 September hijackers - had lit up a police computer.

The German citizen did not know it at the time, but he was starting out on a journey into the darkest heart of America's war on terror.

His ordeal would last five months, where, unknown to his family and friends, he would be trussed up, tortured and abused before being dumped in Albania, fearing he was to be shot.

The controversy over secret CIA flights, torture and illegal imprisonment, continues to rage across Europe.

Yesterday saw the extraordinary spectacle of Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, acknowledging the CIA's "mistake" to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

And in London, the former Law Lord and judge Lord Steyn said that "if British authorities knew the nature of these flights they would be guilty of war crimes".

Even as Ms Rice sought to end the political crisis which has now engulfed eight European countries, lawyers acting for Mr Masri were filing a lawsuit in Washington claiming he had been captured and tortured by the CIA.

Mr Masri, represented by the rights group the American Civil Liberties Union, is the first to challenge the CIA abductions and torture of foreign nationals.

In addition to torture Mr Masri says he was subjected to "prolonged, arbitrary detention" and he now wants the US government to acknowledge its mistake and apologise in public.

On 31 December 2003 as Mr Masri waited to clear immigration in Macedonia, the border police notified the local CIA station which contacted the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

This week it was revealed that the head of the CIA's counter terrorist unit had ordered Mr Masri's "extraordinary rendition" because she "had a hunch" he was involved in terrorist activities.

The coach left without him and Mr Masri was taken to a small room where he was interrogated for several hours by his captors who asked him whether he was linked to al Qaeda.

"I kept saying no but they did not believe me," he said.

He was then taken by car to a motel outside Skopje, where he was held and interrogated for a further 23 days.

The Macedonians then took a statement from him and allowed him to leave the motel.

Outside a lorry pulled up and several men grabbed him and put a hood over his head. He was driven to a location he believes was near the airport and beaten, stripped naked and photographed, and then knocked out with a powerful sleeping potion.

Mr Masri was handcuffed, blindfolded, injected with drugs and put on a plane.

He awoke several hours later in Afghanistan and taken to a prison cell.

An English-speaking doctor arrived to take a blood sample. He was accompanied by guards who repeatedly punched him.

The following morning an interrogator with a thick Lebanese accent told him: "Where you are now there is no law, no rights, no one knows you are here and no one knows about you."

During his incarceration, Mr Masri says he was repeatedly beaten.

His captors refused to believe he had no link with al Qaeda.

In March 2004, Mr Masri began a hunger strike which was broken 37 days later when guards beat him and force-fed him with a tube down his throat.

In early May, a man who Mr Masri believes was German, entered his cell and asked him questions about the 9/11 hijackers.

Mr Masri denied any knowledge of the group and asked him whether his family knew where he was.

They did not.

A week later, Mr Masri was blindfolded and taken to Albania.

He was told he had been held because he had "a suspicious name".

The Washington Post this week reported that when the CIA realised they had been wrong, they decided to dump Mr Masri and act as if nothing had happened.

Mr Masri has since been reunited with his family.

He is now unemployed and says that the publicity surrounding his case has led his friends to shun him.

Long after the CIA dropped him off on deserted mountain road, terrified he was about to be shot in the back, the consequences of his ordeal have turned into a full blown crisis between the US, Germany and the other European countries where a blind eye was turned to the alleged activities of CIA snatch and torture squads.

"I have very bad feelings about the United States, " Mr Masri said.

"I think it's just like in the Arab countries: arresting people, treating them inhumanly and less than that, and with no rights and no laws."

- INDEPENDENT