The German citizen Khaled El Masri was abducted by CIA officials at the Serbian-Macedonian border on 31 December 2003. The officials had mistakenly identified El Masri as a member of Al Qaida and a possible participant in a Neu-Ulm-based terrorist cell. Khaled El Masri spent nearly five months in a secret CIA detention center in Afghanistan. During this time he was regularly interrogated, subjected to physical abuse, and humiliated. Eventually, the CIA brought him to Albania where he was released on a roadside. He arrived back in Germany on 29 May 2004.
The case of El Masri is one of the best documented extraordinary renditions by the CIA. Several inquiry commissions took up this case and a number of lawsuits were filed before different national and regional courts. ECCHR filed a complaint in Germany to an administrative court seeking to enforce thirteen arrest warrants against former CIA officials, which were involved in El Masri’s abduction in Skopje and flight to Kabul. The German government, however, refused to officially ask the US for extradition of the indicted persons. The lawsuit was rejected on the merits by the Cologne administrative court.
In December 2014, ECCHR has sent a letter to the Minister of Justice, Heiko Maas (SPD), calling on the German government to request the extradition of thirteen former CIA employees wanted by arrest warrants as well as to enforce the rights of CIA victim and German citizen Khaled El Masri to a formal apology and reparation by the US. ECCHR claims in its letter that the German government must request a formal apology and compensation to El Masri by the USA, if the German Federal Office of Justice still refuses to ask the US for extradition.
The senate’s report on CIA torture shows that the rendition of El Masri was by no means an exception but part of a systematic rendition and torture program. Germany must stand up for the law as an effective answer to significant forms of violence and torture. Various parliamentary inquiry commissions also included the case of El Masri. The European Parliament, the Council of Europe and the German parliament all investigated his case. The case and judicial actions has also been an issue for the US diplomacy. Several cables from US embassy leaked by Wikileaks show the pressure the US exercised on various European states in avoiding judicial actions and lawsuits’ enforcement.
Dossier: The US torture program – Approved at the hightest levels
Hintergrundbericht: Der Fall El Masri
Letter to Minister of Justice: Germany must enforce criminal prosecution of CIA agents and demand an apology and compensation
CIA-"Extraordinary Rendition" Flights, Torture and Accountability – A European Approach
Torture and the Use of Information in Countering Terrorism
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