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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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February 1st,
2007 - German Court Challenges C.I.A. Over Abduction |
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German Court Challenges
C.I.A. Over Abduction By Mark Landler New York Times February 1, 2007 Frankfurt, Jan. 31 - A
German court on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant for 13 people in the
mistaken kidnapping and jailing of a German citizen of Lebanese descent, in
the most serious legal challenge yet to the Central Intelligence Agency’s
secret transfers of terrorism suspects. Prosecutors in Munich said
the suspects, whom they did not identify, were part of a C.I.A. “abduction
team” that seized the man, Khaled el-Masri, in Macedonia in late 2003 and
flew him to Afghanistan. He was imprisoned there for five months, during
which, he said, he was shackled, beaten and interrogated about alleged ties
to Al Qaeda, before being released without charges. His ordeal is the most
extensively documented case of the C.I.A.’s practice of “extraordinary
rendition,” in which terrorism suspects are seized and sent for interrogation
to other countries, including some in which torture is practiced. “This is a very
consequential step,” August Stern, the prosecutor in Munich, said in a
telephone interview. “It is a necessary step before bringing a criminal case
against these people.” The Central Intelligence
Agency has never acknowledged any role in Mr. Masri’s detention, and a C.I.A.
spokesman declined to comment on Wednesday. The German government said it
would not comment on the case, except to affirm the independence of the
public prosecutor. Mr. Stern said investigators
would seek to establish the true identities of the 13 people, most of whom
are believed to use aliases. They include the four pilots of the Boeing 737
that picked up Mr. Masri, a mechanic and several C.I.A. operatives, people
familiar with the case said. Issuing an arrest warrant is
a major expansion of the legal challenge to the C.I.A.’s rendition program in
Europe. Italian prosecutors are seeking indictments against 25 C.I.A.
operatives and Italy’s former intelligence chief for the kidnapping of a militant
Egyptian cleric in 2003. In Germany, unlike Italy,
defendants cannot be tried in absentia. As a practical matter it is unlikely
that the Bush administration will acquiesce in the extradition to Germany of
the 13 suspects. But the arrest warrant could further hinder their ability to
move around Europe. The German case also carries more weight, legal experts
said, because of the reputation of courts here for painstaking deliberation
and because of recent efforts to repair damaged diplomatic ties between Germany
and the United States. It is, in fact, a delicate
time for both countries. The Bush administration has faced a drumbeat of
criticism because of its antiterrorism policies since the attacks on Sept.
11, 2001, while the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has been eager to heal
rifts over the Iraq war. “It is unique that a German
court would issue warrants against 13 C.I.A. agents,” said Hans-Christian
Ströbele, a Green Party member of a German parliamentary committee that is
investigating the flights. The arrest warrants, which
were first reported in The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, also have
political implications within Germany, where the role of the government in
tolerating - or even facilitating - C.I.A. flights has come under increased
scrutiny. Frankfurt Airport was reportedly used for many of the flights, as
was the American air base at Ramstein. On Wednesday, a German
broadcaster, NDR, published what it said were the names of the 13 people - 11
men and 2 women. Mr. Stern declined to discuss the names, which have been
picked up by other German news organizations. Although the prosecutor’s
action on Wednesday was the first major legal development in the case, the
German news media have been speculating about it for months. In September a
television program, “Panorama,” tracked down three of those named in North
Carolina. They declined to comment on their activities. For Mr. Masri, who has had
to overcome a tide of public skepticism about his account since it was first
reported in The New York Times in early 2005, the court’s action is a
significant step in bolstering the credibility of his claims, said his
lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic. “This is unbelievably
important for our case,” Mr. Gnjidic said in an interview. “It’s the first
direct sign of the German government against the C.I.A. that they did the
wrong thing.” Mr. Masri, who is
unemployed, lives in the southern German city of Neu-Ulm. The lawyer said Mr.
Masri had been buoyed by a statement of support from the former German
interior minister, Otto Schily. Mr. Masri is petitioning a
federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., to reinstate a lawsuit against the
agency. Last May a federal judge threw out a suit brought by Mr. Masri,
accepting the government’s contention that it would be impossible to hold a
trial without disclosing state secrets. The Justice Department has
declined to help the German prosecutors in their investigation, which has
made the Germans dependent on information from other sources, including
journalists investigating the C.I.A. practice of transferring suspects across
international borders. A major break, Mr. Stern
said, came from a Spanish reporter who compiled a list of the names of people
said to have been involved in Mr. Masri’s abduction from sources in the Civil
Guard, a Spanish paramilitary police agency. The C.I.A. used the Spanish
island of Majorca as a logistics center for its flights, Mr. Gnjidic said,
and the authorities found the names of members of the rendition team on hotel
logs there. Mr. Stern also credited tips
from prosecutors in Milan and from Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who conducted
an inquiry on the transfer issue on behalf of the Council of Europe. The nature of Germany’s role
in Mr. Masri’s case, and in other C.I.A. flights, remains murky. Mr. Masri
has asserted that he was interrogated three times inside his prison in Kabul,
Afghanistan, by a German who identified himself as “Sam.” Germany’s foreign minister,
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has said he was not told of the abduction until June
2004, after Mr. Masri had been released in Albania. As chief of staff to
Gerhard Schröder, then the chancellor, Mr. Steinmeier oversaw all German intelligence
services. Mr. Steinmeier is facing
questions about his role in another case, involving a German-born Turkish man
imprisoned for four and a half years at the American military jail in
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The man, Murat Kurnaz, was
released by the United States last August after lengthy negotiations between
Germany and the United States. But internal German intelligence documents
indicate that the Germans turned down an offer by the Americans to send Mr.
Kurnaz home as early as 2002. Mr. Steinmeier has insisted
that the Americans never made an official offer to release Mr. Kurnaz. He has
also noted that worries about security were running high in the aftermath of
the Sept. 11 attacks. German newspapers have been full of speculation about
whether the affair will cost Mr. Steinmeier his job. Stephen Grey contributed
reporting from Toronto, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington. Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/world/europe/01germany.html 31.01.2007 - 12:33 Uhr, NDR
Norddeutscher Rundfunk Hamburg (ots) - Nach
Recherchen des NDR wurde der Haftbefehl gegen folgende Personen ausgestellt: Kirk James Bird James Ohale James Fairing Michael Grady Jason Franklin Hector Lorenzo John Decker Lyle Edgard Lumdsen Walter Richard Greesbore Bryam Charles Jane Payne Patricia Riloy Eric Fair Im Haftbefehl der Staatsanwaltschaft
München I finden sich zu jedem Namen mehrere weitere Schreibweisen. Bei
diesen Namen handelt es sich nach NDR Recherchen weitgehend um Tarnnamen.
Darüberhinaus sind den Ermittlern nach “Panorama”-Recherchen jedoch auch
mehrere Klarnamen bekannt. Bei den 13 nun per
Haftbefehl Gesuchten handelt es sich nach Recherchen des ARD-Politmagazins “Panorama”
um Mitarbeiter der CIA. Die meisten von ihnen wohnen im US-Bundesstaat North
Carolina. Drei von ihnen hatte “Panorama” schon im September 2006 mit den
Vorwürfen konfrontiert, die Verdächtigen hatten aber jede Stellungnahme verweigert. 31. Januar 2007/IB Pressekontakt: Rückfragen bitte an: NDR Norddeutscher Rundfunk NDR Presse und Information Telefon: 040 / 4156 - 2300 Fax: 040 / 4156 - 2199 External link: http://www.presseportal.de/story.htx?nr=934564&ressort=2 |