An innocent man's five months in CIA 'salt pit'

[Thom Little]

A German citizen held by the CIA in Afghanistan for five months is to start a lawsuit against the US Administration. The case of Khalid Masri highlights the pitfalls of “extraordinary rendition”, says the American Civil Liberties Union, which backs his case.

.......

A former CIA official told The Washington Post that the local agency chief “believed he was someone else”. The official added: “She didn’t really know. She just had a hunch.”

Mr Masri was handcuffed and blindfolded, bundled into a van and driven to an airport building, where he was drugged and put in a jumpsuit. He said later that he had seen “seven or eight men with black clothing and wearing masks”. He said that in Afghanistan he was put in the “salt pit”, a cold, dirty cellar with no light and one blanket. On the first night, he said, he was kicked, beaten and told: “You are here in a country where no one knows about you, in a country where there is no law. If you die, we will bury you, and no one will know.”

The CIA is said to have concluded by March that his passport was genuine and that it had the wrong man. It decided to release him, but he was held for two more months before being flown to Albania and dumped in a wood. Today’s lawsuit will say that CIA officials violated US and universal human rights laws.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1905661,00.html

[Canuckistanian]

1. "flown".... "to Albania"???

"and dumped in a wood"????

What is this, the bloody Stasi?

Man, this shit is scary.

[punpirate]

2. Here's an earlier account...

... which probably derived from the German press, although it seems to come from the Washington Post:

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/2426/

Quite a story. Wonder if Merkel will bring this up with Kindasleezza?

[saigon68]

3. Kindasleezy will never admit to this

She is a thug and a war criminal in her own vicious way

LOOK AT THE WOMAN'S EYES !!!!!!



POSSESSED BY SOME OTHER UNWORLDLY DEMON--- OF SOME SORT

[DELUSIONAL]

13. She is an evil *itch --

some sort of half human non female type THING.

[Kellanved]

10. The story broke in January

For some reason it didn't get much attention then - at least not on DU/ in the US.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2958787

[drdtroit]

4. “She didn’t really know. She just had a hunch.”

Isn't that just fucking beautiful.

[killbotfactory]

5. Hey, we went to war on a hunch

What's so important about one man? :banghead:

[Stockholm]

6. Condi explains it to us Europeans...

Speaking before she left the US, Ms Rice admitted that terror suspects were flown abroad for interrogation but denied they were tortured.

Germany is one of the countries reported as a landing spot
She said suspects were moved by plane under a process known as rendition, and that this was "a lawful weapon".

She refused to address claims that the CIA had set up secret prisons abroad where suspects are interrogated without reference to international law.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4501948.stm

Thanks Condi, your explanation makes perfect sense and this rendition business is all water under the bridge. :sarcasm:

[truthisfreedom]

7. sorry for any inconvenience, you matched the desc. of someone inspired

by the bush administration's war on terra.

[miles44]

8. Assuming this is even true.....

then there needs to be a serious hearing regarding this. People should be held accountable at the agency and jailed. This is illegal. We pull this kind of crap all the time and I think it's time we do something about it.

[Che_Nuevara]

9. it will never hit the people REALLY responsible

Vietnam? Abu Ghraib? Do the people who order the crimes ever get punished?

[Turley]

11. The Germans must be heavily involved

They had the guy under surveillance for months and likely provided the info to the CIA. Frankly I think his story smells. He provided a car for Reda Seyam and helped find him an apartment despite Seyam's name being in the press for his potential involvement in the Bali bombings. Masri's explanation was "I just didn't think it was all that important". Strange. His Moschee was under constant surveillance because it hosted so many radicals and some of its members joined the rebels in Chechnya.

Masri's explanation for his travel also seems odd to me. He decided he needed a week's vacation so he decides on a 20 hour bus ride to Skopje where he apparently didn't bother to book a hotel. Skopje? Somehow this doesn't pass the smell test.

Now that the Greens are in the opposition they feel pretty much free to bash the Hell out of Schilly who was supposedly aware of the imprisonment. Then again, he almost certainly would have known about German Intelligence surveillance of Masriand what info was passed on to the CIA. Somehow I think there's a LOT more here than meets the eye.

[abester]

12. I think you are correct

and that a lot more is going on than meets the eye. That is always the case in real life being condensed in a small article fit for publication. However, even if only half of what happened to this man is true, it is still telling of highly questionable conduct on the part of the CIA. But that isn't at all news I suppose.