Warrants for CIA agents

BERLIN - Munich state prosecutors yesterday took the unprecedented step of issuing warrants for the arrest of 13 suspected CIA agents.

They are alleged to have kidnapped and beaten a German national who was wrongly abducted and held prisoner in Afghanistan under the controversial United States extraordinary rendition programme.

The development marked the latest twist in the spectacular case of Khaled el Masri, a German of Lebanese descent who was bundled into an unmarked bus while on holiday in Macedonia in December 2003 and flown to a secret US renditions jail in Afghanistan. He was released in Albania in May 2004.

El Masri alleges that he was beaten and mistreated by American interrogators at the prison although it was clear that he had been wrongly abducted and was innocent. He maintains that on his release he was "dumped like a piece of luggage" in woods in Albania and that his abductors told him they "wanted to hear nothing more" about him.

State prosecutors in Munich said that the warrants issued were for the arrest of 13 suspected CIA agents, identified only by their codenames. As German arrest warrants are not valid in the US, the suspects could only be arrested if they were to travel to the European Union.

- INDEPENDENT