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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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June 9th,
2008 - Renditions Victim to Sue German Government |
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Renditions
Victim to Sue German Government By Spiegel magazine June 9, 2008 A German-Lebanese victim of
the CIA's extraordinary renditions program plans to sue the government in
Berlin to force it to issue extradition orders against 13 American
intelligence agents involved in his alleged kidnapping. Khaled el-Masri, the
German-Lebanese abducted in Afghanistan as part of the CIA's extraordinary
renditions program and detained without reason, is expected to file a lawsuit
early this week against Germany's Federal Justice Ministry in a Berlin
administrative court. El-Masri is being backed in
his suit by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, which
wants to force the German government to pursue the extradition of 13 CIA
agents from the United States who allegedly kidnapped el-Masri in Macedonia
at the end of 2003 and took him to Afghanistan in early 2004. Public prosecutors in Munich
issued arrest warrants against the supposed kidnappers in early 2007, but the
Justice Ministry decided at the end of the year not to transmit extradition
requests to the United States following a major diplomatic offensive by the
US Embassy and after concluding that prosecutors would have meager prospects
for success. At the time, the case
created serious tensions within the German government coalition of
left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD) and the conservative Christian Democrats
(CDU/CSU). Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), backed by conservative
Chancellor Angela Merkel, had threatened to veto the extradition orders if
Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries, of the Social Democrats, issued them. Merkel's
party had wanted to sidestep a potential trans-Atlantic spat as the
government sought a more reconciliatory approach with Washington following
the Iraq war. "The German federal
judiciary stopped half way at the time," said ECCHR chief Wolfgang
Kaleck. "An arrest warrant for causing the disappearance and torture of
a person must be carried out with all force." External link: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,558496,00.html |