CIA had evidence on al-Masri from German police: report

[Judi Lynn]

CIA had evidence on al-Masri from German police: report

9 December 2005

BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is under increasing pressure to present a full account of the abduction by the CIA of a German national following renewed allegations Friday about German intelligence involvement in the affair.

Berlin said Friday it would not be issuing any new information about the case, involving the Lebanese-born German citizen, Khaled al-Masri, which has already strained Germany's ties to Washington.

Al-Masri, who was arrested in Macedonia in December 2003, claims to have been handed over to the CIA before being flown to Afghanistan for interrogation on suspicion of terrorism.

He returned to Europe five months later after the CIA accepted that he was the wrong man.

However, his case has helped spark a row in Germany about so-called CIA rendition flights to transport terror suspects through German airspace.
(snip/...)

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=52&story_id=26065&name=CIA+had+evidence+on+al-Masri+from+German+police%3A+report

[stumblnrose]

1. Rove's Hand

Even Europe cannot escape the artisan's clever finger-pointing MO. The teflon regime at work. Hey, The US only does the dirty work at the behest of nations that on face value are not even complicit in this war. Same with the French. Press has been leaking plenty about their "rendition" complicity. No one is writing about what happens at the end of that flight to Egypt or Uzbekhistan.

[rainbow4321]

2. CIA abduction came after German tip

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L09196205.htm

Information Germany shared with the United States may have prompted the CIA to abduct a German citizen and fly him to Afghanistan for interrogation as a suspected terrorist, a newspaper reported on Friday.

<snip>
"It is possible that information we exchanged with the U.S. authorities alerted the CIA to Masri," an unnamed German security official told the daily Berliner Zeitung newspaper.

Spokesmen for the government and for German security agencies declined to comment on whether they had exchanged information on Masri with the Americans, but a senior government lawmaker said the report was plausible. "I hope it's not true, but I'm afraid it could be true," Wolfgang Bosbach told the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "That would be a nightmare."

<snip>
The case caused diplomatic embarrassment this week when Chancellor Angela Merkel said Washington had acknowledged it as a mistake, but U.S. officials denied making any such admission.