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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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December 10th,
2010 - Court Rejects El-Masri Suit Against German Gov’t |
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Court Rejects El-Masri
Suit Against German Gov’t From the Associated Press December 10, 2010 Berlin - A German court
rejected a lawsuit filed by Khaled el-Masri seeking to force Berlin into
prosecuting suspected CIA agents who he alleges illegally detained him nearly
eight years ago as part of the U.S. rendition program. The Cologne Administrative
Court, in a ruling on Dec. 7, supported Berlin's decision not to seek the
Americans' extradition after Washington told the Germans in 2007 it would
reject any attempts to prosecute its agents, citing national security
concerns. The ruling was published on Friday. The court ruled that
"the German government's decision not to seek the extradition of the
agents, despite the arrest warrant issued by a German court, was legal." El-Masri's lawyer said he
and his client were considering whether to appeal the ruling. They have one
month to do so. El-Masri, 44, a German
citizen of Lebanese descent, says he was illegally detained by CIA agents
while entering Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003 and then transferred to a
CIA-run prison in Afghanistan, where he says he was beaten, sodomized and
injected with drugs. Five months later, el-Masri
says, he was dumped on a hilltop in Albania. U.S. officials have never
publicly commented on the case, but diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks
website show that diplomats in Germany and Macedonia were at pains to keep
the case out of the news and the court. In a cable from the U.S.
Embassy in Skopje, Macedonia, dated Feb. 6, 2006, then-Prime Minister Vlado
Buckovski is cited as promising the U.S. ambassador he would continue to
refuse local press requests to discuss the el-Masri case. Buckovski goes on to ask if
the ambassador could speak to his German counterpart, "suggesting that
the Germans were putting pressure on the Macedonians to be more
forthcoming," according to the cable, which says the ambassador refused. Another cable originating
from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin in 2007 cites the deputy chief of mission,
John M. Koenig, as telling the German deputy national security adviser that
issuing warrants for the agents "would have a negative impact on our
bilateral relationship." El-Masri's lawyer, Manfred
Gnjidic, said the leaked documents "clearly show" the "massive
efforts" on the part of the U.S. government to keep el-Masri's case out
of the courts. He expressed hope they would help him win justice for his
client. "We all know what
happened, the question has been how can we prove it?" Gnjidic said. El-Masri is serving an
unrelated two-year prison sentence for attacking the mayor of his home town
in 2009. Copyright © 2010 The
Associated Press. External link: http://tinyurl.com/2uo3l47 |