Khalid El-Masri

For information about Khalid al-Masri, the suspected Al-Qaeda operative, believed to be a native of the former Soviet Union, see Khalid al-Masri.

Khalid El-Masri (also Khaled El-Masri^[1] and Khaled Masri,^[2] Levantine Arabic pronunciation: [ˈxaːlɪd elˈmɑsˤri, -ˈmɑsˤre]) (born June 29, 1963) is a German citizen who was kidnapped in the Republic of Macedonia,^[3] flown to Afghanistan, allegedly beaten, stripped, raped,^[4] and interrogated and tortured by the CIA for several months as a part of the War on Terror, and then released. His erroneous rendition was apparently due to a misunderstanding that arose concerning the similarity of the spelling of El-Masri's name with the spelling of suspected terrorist al-Masri^[5] (the names are spelled the same way when using Arabic script).

El-Masri was born in Kuwait to Lebanese parents. He grew up in Lebanon. He based his application for asylum on his membership in the Islamic Unification Movement.^[6] He was granted asylum, and in 1994 he obtained German citizenship through previous marriage with a German woman. In 1996, he married a fellow Lebanese and has several children.^[1]

Arrest and detention

El-Masri travelled from his home in Ulm to go on vacation in Skopje at the end of 2003. He was detained by Macedonian border officials on December 31, 2003, because his name was identical (except for variations in Roman transliteration) to that of Khalid al-Masri, an alleged mentor to the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell who has not been apprehended, and because of suspicion that his German passport was a forgery. He was held in a motel in Macedonia for over three weeks and questioned about his activities, his associates, and the mosque he attended in Ulm.

The Macedonian authorities also contacted the local CIA station, who in turn contacted the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia. A December 4, 2005, article in the Washington Post said that an argument arose within the CIA over whether they should remove him from Macedonia in an extraordinary rendition. The decision to do so was made by the head of the al Qaeda division of the CIA's Counter-terrorism Center on the basis of a hunch he was involved in terrorism.^[7] The local authorities released him on January 23, 2004 and American security officials, described in an MSNBC article as members of a "black snatch team", came to Skopje, and detained him. El-Masri alleges that they beat him, stripped him naked, drugged him, and gave him an enema. He was then dressed in a diaper and a jumpsuit, and flown to Baghdad, then immediately to "the salt pit", a covert CIA interrogation center in Afghanistan which contained prisoners from Pakistan, Tanzania, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.^[8]

Afghanistan detention

El-Masri wrote in the Los Angeles Times that, while held in Afghanistan, he was beaten and repeatedly interrogated. He has also claimed that he was sodomized.^[5] He was kept in a bare, squalid cell, given only meager rations to eat and putrid water to drink. In February, CIA officers in Kabul began to suspect his passport was genuine. The passport was sent to the CIA headquarters in Langley where in March the CIA's Office of Technical Services concluded it was indeed genuine. Discussion over what to do with El-Masri included secretly transporting him back to Macedonia, without informing German authorities, dumping him, and denying any claims he made. In the end they did inform the German government, without apologizing, and were able to persuade the Germans to remain silent.^[9]

In March 2004 El-Masri took part in a hunger strike, demanding that his captors afford him due process or watch him die. After 27 days without eating, he forced a meeting with the prison director and a CIA officer known as "The Boss". They conceded he should not be imprisoned but refused to release him. El-Masri continued his hunger strike for 10 more days until he was force-fed and given medical attention. He had lost more than 60 pounds since his abduction in Skopje.

While imprisoned in Afghanistan, Masri befriended several other detainees, and they all memorized each other's telephone numbers so that if one was released they could contact the others' families. One of these detainees, an Algerian named Laid Saidi, was recently released and his description of his capture and detention closely matches that of El-Masri.^[10]

El-Masri reports that "high-value detainee" Majid Khan was held in the salt pit at the same time as he was.^[11] Khan spent a further three and a half years in CIA custody prior to being transferred to Guantanamo on September 5, 2006.

Release and CIA response

In April 2004, CIA Director George Tenet learned that El-Masri was being wrongfully detained. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice learned of his detention in early May and ordered his release.^[8] El-Masri was released on May 28 following a second order from Rice.^[8] They flew him out of Afghanistan and released him at night on a desolate road in Albania, without apology, or funds to return home. He claimed that at the time he believed his release was a ruse, and he would be executed. He was eventually intercepted by Albanian guards, who believed him to be a terrorist due to his haggard and unkempt appearance. He was subsequently reunited with his wife who had returned to her family in Lebanon, with their children, because she thought her husband had abandoned them. Using isotope analysis, scientists at the Bavarian archive for geology in Munich analyzed his hair and verified that he was malnourished during his disappearance.^[12]

"Frances", the CIA analyst who mistakenly recommended El-Masri's detention and rendition was reportedly not punished or fired. In fact, according to reports, she has since been promoted to chief of the agency's Global Jihad unit in charge of hunting al-Qaida and is part of the President's inner circle as his Director for Counterterrorism. "Elizabeth" (her first name), the CIA lawyer who approved the seizure of El-Masri, was reprimanded but continued to work for the agency as legal advisor to its Near East division.^[13]

Subsequent events related to his capture

• A November 9, 2005 Reuters story stated that a German prosecutor is investigating El-Masri's kidnapping "by persons unknown", and that another lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, would be flying to the U.S. to file a civil compensation suit.^[14] The Reuters story says American authorities have neither confirmed nor denied any element of El-Masri's story.
• According to a December 4, 2005, article in the Washington Post, the CIA's Inspector General is investigating a series of "erroneous renditions", including El-Masri's.^[7] The article was written by Dana Priest, the journalist who broke the story on the covert interrogation centres — the "black sites".
• On December 5, 2005, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the United States had acknowledged holding El-Masri in error.^[15]
• On December 6, 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union helped El-Masri file suit in the USA against former CIA director George Tenet and the owners of the private jets, leased to the US government, that the CIA used to transport him.^[16] El-Masri had to participate via a video link because the American authorities again confused him with al-Qaeda terrorist Khalid al-Masri and denied him entry when his plane landed in the United States. Some press reports attributed the Americans barring him entry due to his name remaining on the watch list. But his lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, was also barred entry.
• On December 17, 2005, Front magazine published an article that said a member of a German Intelligence Agency had clandestinely passed a copy of El-Masri's dossier to the CIA in April 2004.^[17]
• El-Masri published a first-person account of his experience in the Los Angeles Times.^[18]
• A report on March 2, 2006, suggested that El-Masri may have been a leader of a radical, Lebanese Sunni islamist group ideologically affiliated with the Muslim brotherhood called "el-Tawhid" in the early 1980s, which fought Alawites in Tripoli during the Lebanese Civil War.^[6] The description of the group fits the Islamic Unification Movement, also known simply as "Tawhid".^[19][20][21] German reports assert that El-Masri himself reported his being a member of "El-Tawhid" or "Al-Tawhid" when he applied to Germany for refugee status, in 1985. The reference to "El-Tawhid" may have been confused with the group Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi lead, Al Qaeda in Iraq, used to be called "Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad".^[22][23] "Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad", the former name for Zarqawi's group, translates as the "movement for monotheism and struggle".
• On May 12, 2006, a U.S. federal court heard a government motion to dismiss the suit brought by El-Masri, claiming the trial could jeopardize national security.^[24]
• On May 18, 2006, U.S. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis, III dismissed a lawsuit El-Masri filed against the CIA and three private companies allegedly involved with his transport, explaining that a public trial would "present a grave risk of injury to national security."^[25] (This legal doctrine is known as the state secrets privilege.^[26]) Ellis also acknowledged that if Masri's allegations were true then he deserved compensation from the US government.
• The BND (German intelligence agency) declared on June 1, 2006 that it had known of El-Masri's seizure 16 months before Germany was officially informed of his mistaken arrest. Germany had previously claimed that it did not know of El-Masri's abduction until his return to the country in May 2004.^[27]
• On July 26, 2006, The ACLU announced that "it will appeal the recent dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Khaled El-Masri against the US government."^[28] According to ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, "If this decision stands, the government will have a blank check to shield even its most shameful conduct from accountability."
• On October 4, 2006 the Washington Post reported that Munich prosecutors were complaining that a lack of cooperation from US authorities was impeding their investigation into El-Masri's abduction.^[29] The article reports that Munich prosecutors have a list of the names, or known aliases, of 20 CIA operatives who they believe played a role in the abduction.
• On January 31, 2007 Munich Prosecutor Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld announced that warrants for 13 people were issued for suspected involvement in Mr El-Masri's rendition.^[30]
• On February 6, 2007, U.S. officials warn the German Government not to issue international warrants.^[31]
• On February 21, 2007, the German Government decided to pass the warrants to Interpol.^[32]
• On March 2, 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal.^[33]
• On April 30, 2007, The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled as unconstitutional the tapping of the phones of El-Masri's lawyer by Munich's DA office. The DA had requested the tapping claiming they expected the kidnappers to contact the lawyer "to find a solution to the case".^[34]
• The real names of two of the pilots on the El-Masri rendition flight were revealed in June 2007, in the (German language) proceedings of netzwerk recherche (NR), a German association of investigative reporters, as Eric Robert Hume (alias Eric Matthew Fain), and James Kovalesky. For several months previously, both U.S. and German newspapers had been dropping heavy hints as to the pilots' true identities.^[35][36] In July 2007, SourceWatch identified the third pilot on the El-Masri flight as Harry Kirk Elarbee, on the basis of an automated search of the FAA airmen database and corroborating information previously published in the press.^[37]
• In June 2007 the ACLU filed a petition for certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court.^[38]
• On July 12, 2007 the European Parliament issued the 2006 Progress Report on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in which the authorities of Macedonia were urged to cooperate in the investigation of the circumstances of the abduction.^[39]
• In September 2007, the German Government decided not to ask the US officially for extradition as an unofficial request had met a negative reply.^[40]
• On September 5, 2007, the Constitution Project filed an amicus curiae, a legal brief in support of his petition for certiorari.^[41]
• On October 9, 2007, the ACLU petition was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court without comment.^[42][43]
• On June 10, 2008, a new civil suit was launched by German and US civil rights lawyers representing Mr El- Masri seeking to force the German government to reconsider the extradition requests it issued in January 2007.^[44]
• In May 2009, Prosecutors attached to the Spanish National Court asked for an arrest order for thirteen CIA agents involved in the kidnapping.^[45]

Arson incident and other legal troubles

On May 17, 2007, El-Masri was arrested on suspicion of arson. According to Die Welt Online (in German) the problem arose over a dispute over an iPod that El-Masri had bought at a METRO warehouse club store back in April in the Bavarian city of Neu-Ulm.^[46] He claimed the iPod malfunctioned just hours after purchase. When he tried to return it, the store refused, and the situation escalated into a shouting match. El-Masri spat in the face of a female employee, and was barred from the store. On May 17, 2007, El-Masri kicked in a door of the Metro store and used gasoline to start a fire. The fire caused almost €90,000 in damages.^[47] Nobody was hurt. El-Masri was arrested near the scene of the crime. After arrest, a judge ordered him held in a psychiatric hospital. On May 18, El-Masri's attorney, Manfred Gnjidic, conceded his client did set fire to the store, but blamed it on his client's torture experiences and claimed that the German government did not provide enough therapy to him after his return from Afghanistan.^[48] He had actually requested extended therapy for his client shortly before the incident, as El-Masri stated he felt threatened, and believed himself to be pursued by cars and strangers. He stated the act of arson was executed on impulse and could not have led to a larger fire. While the courts recognized that El-Masri had never breached the law before his CIA abduction, and ruled that he had been traumatized, they also stated that this did not now justify acts of violence. He received a suspended sentence.^[47]

Prosecutors in the arson case also revealed that El-Masri faced charges for allegedly attacking a truck driving instructor. They said El-Masri lost his temper after the instructor criticised him for failing to attend his lessons.^[49]

On September 11, 2009, El-Masri was arrested after attacking Gerold Noerenberg, the mayor of Neu-Ulm. Shortly before the attack El-Masri tried to meet Noerenberg, but was prevented from entering the office and sent off by the police. He then took three of his six children with him, stormed the office and struck Noerenberg repeatedly in the face and threw a chair after him. He was arrested two hours after the attack in Senden. He confessed the attack, but kept silent about the motives at the time.^[50] Writing from his cell, he complained about the increasing licensing of brothels by the city, one of which he said desecrated a Muslim prayer room.^[51] He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment on 30 March 2010. His lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, explained that El-Masri believed he was pursued by the secret services, trying to break or recruit him, and he intended to file an appeal.^[52]

See also

• Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States
• Ghost detainee
• Forced disappearance
• Prison Rape
• State secrets privilege

Similar cases:

• Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr
• Maher Arar
• Mohammed Haydar Zammar

References

External links

• Who kidnapped Khaled El-Masri?, Al-Jazeerah.info, January 11, 2005
• 'They beat me from all sides', The Guardian, January 14, 2005
• Investigation: Macedonia Implicated in "Abduction" Case, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, January 21, 2005
• Aboard Air CIA, Newsweek, February 28, 2005
• CIA Flying Suspects To Torture?, CBS News, March 6, 2005
• White House Defends Interrogations, CBS News, March 6, 2005
• Man's Claims May Be a Look at Dark Side of War on Terror, reprint from the LA Times, April 14, 2005
• The Hunt for Hercules N8183J, Der Spiegel, November 28, 2005
• Judge T.S. Ellis' decision, El-Masri v Tenet
• Khaled El-Masri v. George Tenet et al. (.pdf), ACLU, December 6, 2005
• Cooperation and Concern from Berlin, Der Spiegel, December 12, 2005
• Germany still awaits U.S. response to kidnapping allegations, San Jose Mercury, December 20, 2005
• Secrecy Privilege Invoked in Fighting Ex-Detainee's Lawsuit, The Washington Post, May 13, 2006
• Lawsuit Against CIA Is Dismissed, The Washington Post, May 19, 2006
• I am not a state secret, Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2007
• Disappeared, But Not Silenced, Amnesty International Magazine, Spring 2007
• Supreme Disgrace, The New York Times editorial, October 11, 2007
• The Kidnapping of Khaled El-Masri – A Document Archive