WikiLeaks War-on-Terror Special: How the US Pressured Germany To Drop the Khaled al-Masri "Rendition" Case
Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 9:03
At the end of 2003 Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen,was abducted in Macedonia, flown to Afghanistan, and interrogated and allegedly tortured by the CIA for several months. He was released in May 2004 after high-level officials concluded he had been detained in error, probably because of the similarity of his name to that of an al-Qa'eda operative.
In February 2007, amidst growing pressure for legal action against those responsible for the abduction and abuse of el-Masri, the Deputy Chief of the US Mission approached Germany's Deputy National Security Advisor: "Our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German Government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
Yesterday, almost four years after that meeting, a German court rejected el-Masri's lawsuit seeking to force the German government to prosecute the American operatives involved in his kidnap and interrogation.