[promoted by Steven D]
On December 31, 2003, a German national with Lebanese lineage by the name of Khaled el-Masri was allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents and shipped off to a prison in Afghanistan where he has was held for five months, tortured, then released without charges being brought against him.
If his story sounds familiar, it’s because this tactic has been used repeatedly in George Bush’s Global War on Terror™.
continued below the fold…
Known commonly as extraordinary rendition, this practice is a blatant violation of international law and spits in the face of morality. Earlier this week, catnip posted two different entries highlighting the expansive reach of this scandalous activity. The first involved the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian national who endured a similar fate to el-Masri but with a Syrian twist, and the second was regarding confirmation by the UK media that Great Britain has cooperated with U.S. officials to use their airports as staging grounds for the flights that carry the rendered detainees.
Now, thanks to a surprisingly thorough job of reporting by the NY Times, Germany can be added to the list of cooperative countries in this tangled web of torture and secrecy.
German officials said they knew nothing about the man’s abduction and have repeatedly pressed Washington for information about the case, which has set off outrage here. At a meeting in Berlin last December, Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded an explanation from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the incident.
But on Monday in Neu-Ulm near Munich, the police and prosecutors opened an investigation into whether Germany served as a silent partner of the United States in the abduction of the man, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Arab descent who was arrested Dec. 31, 2003, in Macedonia before being flown to the Kabul prison.
The action came after a two-and-a-half-hour meeting at police headquarters in which Mr. Masri told the police that he was “90 percent” certain that a senior German police official was the interrogator who had visited him three times inside the prison in Kabul but had identified himself only as “Sam.” The German prosecutors said Monday that they were also investigating whether the German Embassy in Skopje, Macedonia, had been notified about Mr. Masri’s kidnapping within days of his capture there, but then had done nothing to try to help him.
The German government is denying, of course, that they were a “silent cooperator” in this outrageous practice. They are following the Bush War Council’s lead by questioning the integrity of the victim rather than holding someone accountable for torture and other violations of international law. The problem with their smoke and mirrors is this:
- Khaled el-Masri is not the only person to have been rendered since George’s war was unleashed
- He is an innocent man, no charges were brought against him during his detention, and
- other governments have been proven to be “silent partners”
I remain hopeful that someday history will vindicate people like Maher Arer and Khaled el-Masri, but it is clear that the web of deception runs deep through the halls of power across the world.
I will probably get a few site hits from the intelligence community for posting this entry, but I don’t care. These stories must be told by someone, and these immoral practices exposed case-by-case. It is the only way we will be able to restore our collective dignity.
For further reading on el-Masri check out the Reuters article, and Gandhi over at Bush Out who was covering this case back in May of 2005.
Update [2006-2-22 11:29:21 by Man Eegee]: To clarify Mr. el-Masri’s innocence, here’s a snippet to an MSNBC article from April of 2005. It was a case of mistaken identity, yet they still detained and tortured him for several months.
Last year, the CIA thought it had an important al-Qaida terrorist in custody. CIA agents secretly detained him in Europe and flew him to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan, in a so-called “rendition.” But now senior U.S. officials tell NBC News that CIA realized early on, it had the wrong man — but kept him in prison anyway. They say he was kept in the primitive prison for more than a month after CIA director George Tenet was informed of the case, while officials tried to figure out a way to fix their mistake. (emphasis mine)
Crossposted from my humble blog and Political Cortex
Let this story reach the ends of the earth, that one day enough people will wake up to the truth and put an end to the suffering done in the name of freedom.
Great diary, Manny. A lot of people will assume, of course, that he’s guilty of something. (And, sometimes, those who are rendered are guilty of something.) You say he’s innocent. Could you tell us a bit more about that so we can stress that?
Of course, even if he were guilty of mass murder, I’d be just as upset with his handling, the torture, the secrecy … and, as Jane Mayer pointed out last year, the SIMPLE LACK of an ARREST WARRANT.
I yelled at Jimmy Carter last night on TV (not that he heard me) because he referred to the Guantanamo detainees as having first been “arrested.” No, Pres. Carter, they were not. That’s the FIRST part of the problem with all of these detainees held in all these prisons, revealed or secret, around the world.
Last evening, NPR’s All Things Considered interviewed Jane Mayer — about whose latest article BooMan wrote here a couple days ago:
(Prince George just came on CNN, I tried MSNBC and, i’ll be danged, they’re showing Olympics hockey. Cool.)
Gandhi over at Bush Out did the yeoman’s work on this months ago, and even he has remarked with frustration that this story didn’t, or isn’t, getting the attention that it deserves.
To be simple about it, this whole thing was a case of mistaken identity. Condoleeza Rice, as National Security Advisor, gave the direct order for his release. There is still alot of tension between the two countries, but the newest twist I highlighted above shows that there is much more to the story. How much “assistance” did the German’s give to the CIA? Are there any similar patterns between this and Maher Arar’s case with the Canadians, etc?
Here’s an MSNBC article with more explanation on the mistake:
The official wanted list chart of photos had one that was a photo of the wrong guy and it was up since 9/11. It came about after the recent missile strike in Pakist. and I noticed it was the photo that came up in a search for the one wanted for the Portland camp and denied extradition by GB. I thought he was al Masri. Is that the same one?
I did a search for the wanted list mistake but can’t find it at the moment. I recall the incident though, they had the wrong picture up on the web, correct? That seems more recent, Mr. el-Masri’s abduction happened in late December 2003 and he was detained for five months. Details are barely emerging from that episode two years later.
See if this helps explain it
Talk Left
Here’s a link to a blog entry with the photos.
In The Bullpen
Back when whichever Masri was in the news concerning the Portland training camps, a search produced photos of a large, red-headed man, which that guy isn’t.
That was the price paid to ISI goons in the NWFP for the initial population of Guantanamo. Elders, people with mental deficiencies and/or illness, sheep farmers, it did not matter. Because torture has nothing to do with the victims themselves. It is done for the benefit of those who wait outside the facility, waiting for their own name, or their child’s name to be called.
If there is anyone who has not read Naomi Klein’s piece, here is a link:
Torture’s Dirty Secret: It Works
Opposition to torture is a controversial view to hold these days, especially in the US. Publicly expressing such a view is a courageous act, an act of Resistance.
digging up that link. Regarding the Resistance, I say: ¡Adelante Juntos!
Where is the outrage from the people who tout their deep belief in the ‘sanctity of life’? Where is the outrage from people who are so concerned about the destruction of ‘tradition values’? Where is the outrage from the people who worry that our children are getting morally wrong messages from the culture?
Oh yeah, I remember — they showing off their righteous superiority by fretting over brain-dead women, zygotes, gays and lesbians, and television shows.
At first I wasn’t sure whether you were referring to dem or rep leaders. All of them should be speaking out against improper policies like this one.
The judicial system doesn’t seem to work either. Arar’s case was dismissed by a US judge due to potential embarrasment of Canadian officials being complicit in the extraordinary rendition.
I was thinking more broadly than leadership — I was thinking of those people who love to play the morality card so long as it doesn’t actualy cost them anything. I keep thinking of Samuel Butler’s poem Hudibras which contains the lines “Compound for sins they are inclined to,/By damning those they have no mind to./Still so perverse and opposite,/As if they worshipp’d God for spite”.
I agree but there is no way of knowing who is sincere in advocating change for improved conditions and who might be manipulating others for another purpose.
We have to recognize a serious threat in a culture of deception that’s allowed by our elected leaders not standing up for basic rights. Any one of us could be working from an insincere foundation. The wiretap and maze of internet surveillance programs that are completely unregulated allow virtually any govt or sponsored private business to implicate others as a threat, without regard for liability. Our elected officials need to be addressing that now, but it appears that they approve of it by allowing it to happen.
The German people have made it clear that they don’t agree with, or desire to lend their support to, the policies of the Bush Administration. And now their government gets them involved with this? I’d be really pissed if I were German.
Nice piece Manny.
The other day I looked up “cooperation” in the Neocon Lexicon. Turns out it’s a hybrid form of “coercive operation.”
This little-known etymological fact should be more widely publicized.
Dispatches: Kidnap and Torture American Style
The British video production is available here in Flash 8 Streaming Video
I remember reading the German citizen’s account of this about six-months to a year ago on the front page of the New York Times. Sounded pretty bad to me.
I will never underestimate the ability of American’s to overlook the worst atrocities. It so can happen here.
Good to see your name on the by-line Manny.
Dana Priest also did a front-page piece in December of 2005.
I’m not surprised by the poll results up top, that most of the people here knew about Mr. el-Masri’s story, but I can’t imagine that the masses are aware of this repetitive tactic of torture. Maybe I’m delusional, and they do know about it, and don’t care, but for now I’ll happily reside in the dream that if the full-details of our government’s wrongdoing are exposed like the rot under a long-fallen tree trunk (of the Aspen variety?), then the tide will turn.
I encourage everyone to tell the stories of these innocents. In detail. Wake them up, one by one.
We keep trying
Arar
and can be accessorized for all occasions from torture to trafficking United Nations banned arms into Rwanda. This is a very very interesting story that pertains to torture planes and the CIA and smuggling arms according to Amnesty International.
shine the light in the shadows to expose the evils they are hiding. They know that all of this is immoral and illegal, that is why they are operating in secret, not because they are afraid of revealing their plans to “the terrorists”. I woke up fiesty today, I think I got stung by the Bring It On bug.
just made the frontpage at Political Cortex. It makes me glad that more eyes will see the injustice done upon Mr. el-Masri.
thanks for frontpaging here, Steven, much appreciated.
You da Man!
I don’t think I’ve ever chatted with a blogger that has the UID #1 before, I’m star-struck! 😉
(Tom is numero uno over at the Cortex)
That’s great!
Good to see you here Manny.