Khaled El-Masri (also Khalid El-Masri and Khaled Masri, Levantine Arabic pronunciation: , ; born 29 June 1963) is a German, Lebanese and French citizen who was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian police in 2003, and handed over to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While in CIA custody, he was flown to Afghanistan, where he was held at a black site and routinely interrogated, beaten, strip-searched, raped, and subjected to other forms of torture.- (para. 205) El Masri v. Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia(para 151) El Masri v. Former Yugoslav Republic of MacedoniaCASE OF EL-MASRI v THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA, European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, December 2012 After El-Masri held hunger strikes, and was detained for four months in the "Salt Pit", the CIA admitted his arrest was a mistake and released him. He is believed to be among an estimated 3,000 detainees, including several key leaders of al Qaeda, whom the CIA captured from 2001 to 2005, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks.
In May 2004, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Daniel R. Coats, convinced the German interior minister, Otto Schily, not to press charges or to reveal the program. El-Masri filed suit against the CIA for his arrest, extraordinary rendition and torture. In 2006, his suit El Masri v. Tenet, in which he was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), was dismissed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, based on the U.S. government's claiming the state secrets privilege. The ACLU said the Bush administration attempted to shield its abuses by invoking this privilege."'El-Masri v. Tenet': Background - State Secrets Privilege", ACLU, November 2006, accessed 26 January 2013 The case was also dismissed by the Appeals Court for the Fourth Circuit, and in December 2007, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
On 13 December 2012, El-Masri won an Article 34 case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The court determined he had been tortured while held by CIA agents and ruled that Macedonia was responsible for abusing him while in the country, and knowingly transferring him to the CIA when torture was a possibility. It awarded him compensation.Amy Davidson, "Torturing the wrong man", New Yorker, 13 December 2012Nicholas Kulish, "Court Finds Rights Violation in C.I.A. Rendition Case", New York Times, 13 December 2012 This marked the first time that CIA activities against detainees was legally declared as torture.Amrit Singh, "European court of human rights finds against CIA abuse of Khaled el-Masri", The Guardian, 13 December 2012 The European Court condemned nations for collaborating with the United States in these secret programs.
Personal history El-Masri was born in Kuwait to Lebanese parents. He grew up in Lebanon.
He immigrated to France in the 1980s during the Lebanese civil war, where he applied for political asylum, based on his membership in the Islamic Unification Movement which had fought against the Lebanese government during the war years. In 1988 he obtained French citizenship."El-Masri a member of El-Tawhid", msn.de, February 23, 2006 He then later moved to Germany. He was granted asylum in 1990. In 1994 he obtained German citizenship through a previous marriage with a German woman, whom he later divorced. In 1996, El-Masri married a Lebanese woman in Ulm, Germany. They have had five children together."Extraordinary Rendition – Khaled El-Masri – Statement" , American Civil Liberties Union, June 12, 2005
Abduction and CIA torture in Macedonia At the end of 2003, El-Masri travelled from his home in Ulm to go on a short vacation in Skopje. He was detained by Macedonian border officials on 31 December 2003, because his name was identical (except for variations in Roman transliteration) to that of Khalid al-Masri, who was being sought as an alleged mentor to the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell, and because of suspicion that El-Masri's 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 contacted the local CIA station, who in turn contacted the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia. According to a 4 December 2005 article in the Washington Post, CIA agents discussed whether to remove El-Masri from Macedonia through 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, Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, on the basis of "a hunch" that El-Masri was involved in terrorism; his name was similar to suspected terrorist Khalid al-Masri.
When the Macedonian officials released El-Masri on 23 January 2004, American security officers immediately kidnapped him. El-Masri later described them as members of a "black snatch team." They beat him and sedated him for transport using a rectal suppository. "The CIA stripped, hooded, shackled and sodomized el-Masri with a suppository—in CIA parlance, subjected him to "capture shock"—as Macedonian officials stood by." He was dressed in a diaper and a jumpsuit, with total sensory deprivation, and flown to Baghdad, then immediately to the "Salt Pit", a black site or covert CIA interrogation center, in Afghanistan. It also held CIA prisoners from Pakistan, Tanzania, Yemen and Saudi Arabia."CIA accused of detaining innocent man: If the agency knew he was the wrong man, why was he held?", NBC News, 21 April 2005
'Salt Pit' in Afghanistan After his release, in 2006 El-Masri wrote in the Los Angeles Times that, while held by the CIA in Afghanistan, he was beaten and repeatedly interrogated. He also said that his custodians forcibly inserted an object into his anus. He was kept in a bare, squalid cell, given only meager rations to eat and putrid water to drink.
According to a report by the inspector general of the CIA, El-Masri's German passport was not examined for authenticity until three months into his detention. Upon examination, the CIA's Office of Technical Services swiftly concluded it was genuine and that his continued detention would be unjustified. Discussion over what to do with El-Masri included secretly transporting him back to Macedonia and dumping him there without informing German authorities, and denying any claims he made.
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 (27 kg) since his abduction in Skopje.
While imprisoned in Afghanistan, Masri befriended several other detainees. The men memorized each other's telephone numbers so that if one was released, he could contact the families of the others. According to the New York Times, Laid Saidi, an Algerian who was a former detainee, was released in 2006. His description of his abduction and detention closely matched that of El-Masri. Alt URL
El-Masri reports that Majid Khan, characterized by the Bush administration as a high-value detainee, was held in the Salt Pit at the same time as he was. Khan, a former resident of Catonsville, Maryland, US was held by the CIA for an additional three and a half years prior to being transferred to US military custody and Guantanamo on 5 September 2006.
Release In April 2004, CIA Director George Tenet was told by his staff that El-Masri was being wrongfully detained. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice learned of the German citizen's detention in early May and ordered his release. Shortly before El-Masri was released, in May 2004 the US ambassador to Germany informed the government for the first time of his detention. The ambassador asked the interior minister Otto Schily not to disclose the events, as the US feared "exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Mr Masri and others with similar allegations." El-Masri was released on 28 May 2004 following a second order from Rice.
The CIA flew El-Masri out of Afghanistan and released him at night on a desolate road in Albania, without an apology or funds to return home."Khaled El-Masri: Torturing the Wrong Man", New Yorker blog, December 2012 He later said that, at the time he believed his release was a ruse, and he would be executed. He was intercepted by Albanian guards, who believed him to be a terrorist due to his haggard and unkempt appearance. He was returned to Germany. It took time for him to be reunited with his wife; with no word of him for so long, she thought he had abandoned her and their family, and returned with their children to her family in Lebanon.
In 2005, a German prosecutor started aiding El-Masri to validate his case. Using isotope analysis, scientists at the Bavarian archive for geology in Munich analyzed his hair; they verified that he was malnourished during his disappearance.Georg Mascolo, Holger Stark: "The US Stands Accused of Kidnapping", Der Spiegel, 14 February 2005
Timeline of investigation and aftermath On 9 January 2005, The New York Times journalists Don van Natta and Souad Mekhennet broke the story about the El-Masri case after months of research. Van Natta and Mekhennet also worked on follow-up stories about the involvement of German and Macedonian authorities. Mekhennet later travelled to Algeria and other countries and interviewed prisoners who had been held with El-Masri. A 9 November 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.German man to file suit over US 'kidnapping', Reuters, November 9, 2005 It noted that US authorities neither confirmed nor denied any element of El-Masri's story. According to a 4 December 2005 article in The Washington Post, the CIA's Inspector General was investigating a series of "erroneous renditions", including El-Masri's. The article was by Dana Priest, the journalist who broke the story on the covert interrogation centers known as the "black sites". On 5 December 2005, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the United States had acknowledged holding El-Masri in error.Glenn Kessler: Rice to Admit German's Abduction Was an Error. The Washington Post, December 6, 2005 On 6 December 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union helped El-Masri file suit in the US 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.German Man Claims U.S. Tortured Him, Forbes, December 6, 2005 El-Masri had to participate via a video link because the American authorities had 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 and being confused with Khalid al-Masri. But his lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, was also barred entry. On 17 December 2005, Front magazine reported that a member of a German Intelligence Agency had clandestinely passed a copy of El-Masri's dossier to the CIA in April 2004."Magazine: CIA received German file on German captive", Reuters, December 17, 2005 In December 2005, El-Masri published a first-person account of his experience in the Los Angeles Times.Khalid El-Masri, Opinion: "America kidnapped me", Los Angeles Times, December 19, 2005