"German Abduction Case Gets Murkier - Did U.S. Pay?"

[GreenPartyVoter]

BERLIN - German politicians expressed surprise on Thursday at reported U.S. comments that Washington had apologized and paid money to a German citizen it abducted to Afghanistan and held for months as a terrorist suspect.


German Khaled el-Masri is seen in Ulm, Germany, December 11, 2005. Germany played no part in the U.S. abduction of a German citizen who was held as a terrorist suspect in Afghanistan, the government said on Wednesday, describing it for the first time as a possible crime. REUTERS/Alexandra Winkler
The case of Khaled el-Masri, who is suing the Central Intelligence Agency for wrongful imprisonment and torture, took a new twist with comments from Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in parliament on Wednesday.

Schaeuble shed new light on a conversation on May 31, 2004, between his predecessor Otto Schily and then-U.S. ambassador Daniel Coats, at which Coats first told the German government that one of its citizens had been detained.

Coats had said that Masri "had received an apology, agreed to keep quiet and been paid a sum of money", Schaeuble said.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1215-09.htm