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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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October 9th,
2007 - Top US Court Rejects CIA Kidnap Case |
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Top US Court Rejects CIA Kidnap
Case By Agence France Presse October 9, 2007 Washington - The Supreme
Court Tuesday threw out a case against the US government brought by a
Lebanese-born German, alleging he was kidnapped by the CIA and tortured for
months before being freed without charge. The court did not give any
reason for rejecting the case brought by Khaled el-Masri, an unemployed
former car salesman and father of six, who says he was abducted by US agents
in the Macedonian capital Skopje on December 31, 2003. He was demanding an apology
from the US administration and 75,000 dollars in compensation, alleging he
was flown to a prison in Afghanistan for questioning before being released
five months later in Albania, without any explanation. "This is a sad day, not
only for Khaled el-Masri, but for all Americans who care about the rule of
law and our country's reputation around the world," his lawyer Ben
Wizner told AFP. "When we deny justice
to an innocent victim of our anti-terror policies, we make America less safe
and we provide the government with the most complete immunity for even the
most shameful human rights abuses." Masri's case is one of the
most-high profile cases of the CIA's "rendition" program under
which terror suspects are seized in one country and taken to another for
questioning, during which human rights groups fear they are tortured. The US administration had
called on the Supreme Court to reject the case for reasons of national
security, arguing it could not respond to Masri's allegations without
revealing the secret CIA activities. White House spokeswoman Dana
Perino on Tuesday again refused to confirm or deny whether Masri was abducted
or mistreated, as she welcomed the court's decision. "I am not in a position
to say anything different" to the government's refusal to discuss the
case in the past, she said. "I believe that the
Justice Department is judicious in applying a state secrets act when it goes
in front of the courts. And the fact that the Supreme Court agreed with us
is, in our opinion, a good thing." Two earlier suits in lower
US courts were also rejected, and Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling closes the
door on any further legal action by Masri in the United States. Masri's lawyers had urged
the Supreme Court to clarify the limits of state secrecy, highlighting that
President George W. Bush had already publicly acknowledged the existence of
the CIA's rendition program. "As a matter of law and
common sense, the government cannot legitimately keep secret what is already
widely known," they argued in their deposition. If the Supreme Court
rejected Masri's case, then "the government may engage in torture,
declare it a state secret and by virtue of that designation avoid any
judicial accountability for conduct that even the government purports to
condemn as unlawful under all circumstances." Documents supporting the
case filed by the rights watchdog Constitution Project called Masri's allegations
"extremely disturbing." "An innocent man, held
by American agents for months, drugged, beaten and tortured in violation of
US laws and treaties was then unceremoniously dumped in a foreign country
after the government realized its mistake," it said. But the Bush administration
argued that if the case went to trial information concerning "highly
classified methods and means of the program" would have to be revealed
to the court. Such "a showing could
be made only with evidence that exposes how the CIA organizes, staffs and
supervises its most sensitive intelligence operations," the government
lawyers argued. "I would say that this
is a country that's facing unprecedented threats that we have not dealt with
before in terms of Al-Qaeda and other terrorists," added Perino. The last time the principle
of state secrets was examined by the Supreme Court was in 1953, when after a
military plane crash it ruled the then government did not have to disclose a
military report into the accident to the families of three civilians killed. Copyright © 2007 AFP. External link: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j9Utjmg0ftb7Mw3SRnUJzvASp7vw |