Khaled al-Masri

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Khaled al-Masri (also el-Masri ; Arabic خالد المصري Chālid al-Masrī , DMG Ḫālid al-Maṣrī ; * June 29, 1963 in Kuwait ) is a German victim of a kidnapping ( Extraordinary rendition ) by the American foreign intelligence service CIA . He wasabductedin 2003 as part of the war on terror and detained and ill-treated for several months. Some German government representatives and authorities came under fire after it became known that they had been informed of the illegal capture , and at times the Federal Intelligence Service was suspected of having one of its employees involved in an interrogation of al-Masri. In 2007 the Munich District Court issued international arrest warrants against 13 CIA employees suspected of being involved in al-Masri's kidnapping in Afghanistan ,despite protests from the USA.

Since his release he has tried various legal means to obtain damages and to hold individuals accountable, including the then CIA director George Tenet . In December 2012, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Macedonia had violated its fundamental rights when it was extradited to US authorities and that it had to pay him compensation.

Macedonia officially apologized to him in April 2018.

Life

Khaled al-Masri was born to Lebanese parents in Kuwait and grew up in Lebanon. In 1985 al-Masri came to the Federal Republic of Germany as an asylum seeker. He justified his application for asylum by saying that he was a member of an Islamist armed group called " al-Tawhid " and that he was tortured for this reason. The organization al-Tawhid (Eng. "Unity of Believers") has its origin in Jordan and supports the "fight against unbelievers". The Sunni - Palestinian movement committed to loud attorney general the "militant Islam". Al-Masri received German citizenship in 1994 . After divorcing his German wife, he married his second wife, Aischa. He is a trained carpenter and lived with his wife and six children in Senden , Bavaria.

CIA affair

Al-Masri was initially detained in Macedonia at the end of 2003 by the authorities there because his surname matches that of an alleged al-Qaida member and his German passport was believed to be forged. The Macedonian authorities then detained him for 23 days in a Skopje hotel with no contact . After reporting to the US foreign secret service , the CIA, he kidnapped al-Masri to Afghanistan and held him there for several months.

According to his own testimony, which he repeatedly gave in great detail and consistently, he was stripped naked, then put on diapers, given drugs and an enema , and beaten. He then went on a hunger strike. He got to know other prisoners, including the Algerian Laid Saidi , who has now also been released and who has described his case in a similar way.

When his passport turned out to be genuine and CIA Director George Tenet and then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice learned of the case, German authorities were informed. According to the CIA, al-Masri received 14,500 euros (about US $ 17,700 at the exchange rate at the time) as compensation for his five-month detention on his release. The 3,000 euros that al-Masri had with him when he was arrested in Macedonia could no longer be found by the CIA. The CIA headquarters had previously authorized al-Masri compensation of up to US $ 50,000. According to the CIA, concerns that al-Masri could attract the attention of the authorities by carrying more than 40,000 euros in cash on his entry into Germany meant that he was only given a smaller sum. When he was released, Al-Masri had to undertake not to speak to media or German officials about his detention experience and was warned that he would continue to be monitored by the CIA. At the end of May 2004, al-Masri was abandoned on an Albanian forest road directly on the Macedonian border without any financial means or prior information to his family . He said he was given his passport and other personal effects at the border crossing. On June 3rd he reached Germany. He had lost 18 kg of body weight since he was abducted.

The kidnapping was revealed by the German journalist Souad Mekhennet . She reported on January 9, 2005 in the New York Times (together with her US colleague Don van Natta Jr.) of al-Masri's arrest and started the CIA affair. Numerous international media took up this; a discourse began on what the Bush administration and the CIA should do without.

On October 16, 2006, SWR television broadcastReport Mainz ” in its magazine under the heading News about the El-Masri case: Were there any contacts with the Islamist scene? a report asking why al-Masri was targeted by his kidnappers and whether there were any reasons why he was being abducted. After evaluating secret police documents, the broadcast's authors expressed the thesis that al-Masri was part of a network of radical Islamists.

Al-Masri had apparently had contact with members of the extremist Muslim scene through the multicultural house in Neu-Ulm . a. to the Islamist Reda Seyam . It is possible that he knew Mamdouh Mahmud Salim , Osama bin Laden's chief financial officer, who was jointly responsible for the attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam with hundreds of deaths through contacts in the multicultural house in Neu-Ulm . Even Mohammed Atta , one of the pilots of the attack at the 11. September 2001, New York , and Said Bahaji , chief logistician just that attacks were, according to the SWR report of 16 October 2006 already in the Multicultural House in Neu-Ulm. Fritz G., who was arrested on September 4, 2007 on suspicion of terrorism, also frequently went in and out there.

The American Civil Liberties Union had brought against the United States and in particular against the former on behalf of al-Masri's CIA boss George Tenet raised. The allegation was a violation of human rights and a violation of US law. The US had banned al-Masri from entering the country for a press conference.

A US federal court in Alexandria, near Washington, dismissed the case against the CIA in May 2006. The reason given was that the case touched "state secrets" that had to be protected. Al-Masri appealed. Al-Masri was able to travel to the USA in 2005 to attend the beginning of the appointment process and to give interviews. The appeal was dismissed in early March 2007.

After it became known in December 2005 that the Federal German authorities and the then Interior Minister Otto Schily had been informed early on, the case aroused public interest in Germany and also in the USA. Speculations about aiding and abetting German authorities in the kidnapping of al-Masri were also fueled by his statement that a German-speaking Federal Intelligence Service investigator who called himself "Sam" was present at his interrogation . Al-Masri stated that he had identified him as an official of the Federal Criminal Police Office and a former member of the Mehlis Commission based on a photo in the online newspaper Saar-Echo . The accused denied being “Sam”, stated that he was on vacation at the time and later obtained a reply stating that he had never been to Afghanistan, but “demonstrably on duty in Germany at the specified time “To have been. The Munich public prosecutor's office followed up other leads to "Sam", and members of the CIA were also specifically suspected.

Al-Masri described his experiences in 2006 before the Bundestag committee investigating BND activities in Iraq and CIA flights in Germany. There was unanimous opinion that an injustice had been done to him, but there was disagreement on the question of what role German authorities played in this and how further investigations should be carried out.

In January 2006, the Munich District Court allowed the telephone connection of al-Masri's lawyer to be monitored. The court assumed that the perpetrators of the kidnapping could possibly contact al-Masri or the lawyer by phone. The constitutional complaint filed against the decisions of the local court and the regional court, which confirmed the order, was successful. The 3rd Chamber of the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court overturned the decisions in its decision of April 30, 2007 - 2 BvR 2151/06 - because they violated the lawyer's rights (secrecy of telecommunications / professional practice).

At the end of January 2007, the Munich District Court issued arrest warrants against 10 CIA employees suspected of having been involved in al-Masri's kidnapping in Afghanistan. They were charged with deprivation of liberty and dangerous physical harm. The Federal Ministry of Justice released the arrest warrants for an international search. The then US government protested and tried unsuccessfully to prevent the international manhunt. Since then, 10 of the 13 suspected CIA agents who are alleged to have been involved in al-Masri's kidnapping and who have been exposed by hotel lists submitted by Spanish authorities have been in the 186 Interpol member states "with the aim of arrest for extradition to Germany" Search advertised - and therefore practically no longer usable internationally for the USA. The USA, itself an Interpol member state, announced that it would refuse an extradition, whereupon this was not requested by the German side either. The names of the three pilots of the Aero Contractors hijacking flight were researched by investigative journalists as Harry Kirk Elarbee (aka Kirk James Bird), Eric Robert Hume (aka Eric Matthew Fain) and James Kovalesky (aka James Richard Fairing). Al-Masri reported on his abduction in the Los Angeles Times in March 2007 .

On October 9, 2007, the United States Supreme Court denied al-Masri's motion to deal with his lawsuit for damages against the CIA for his abduction to Afghanistan without explanation. With the rejection of al-Masri's motion, the judges upheld the decision of an appellate court in Richmond , USA from March 2007, which had refused to deal with the matter on the grounds of the protection of state secrets and thus also largely represented the position of the Bush administration. His lawyer said, "the legal process in the US [has] been exhausted for the time being".

Al-Masri sued the Federal Ministry of Justice in June 2008 . The federal government should be forced to accelerate the extradition of 13 CIA agents from the USA, who were suspected of being involved in his kidnapping in 2004.

In December 2012, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg recognized Al-Masri's transfer to the CIA as a violation of fundamental rights. Macedonia was sentenced to pay compensation of 60,000 euros.

Criminal offenses and psychiatric reports

Mayhem

At the beginning of February 2007 it became known that the Ulm Public Prosecutor's Office was investigating al-Masri for willful assault. Al-Masri had beaten an employee of the audit firm Dekra . The latter had warned him because he had missed too many hours of his training as a truck driver, whereupon al-Masri freaked out and struck. Through his lawyer, he regretted the incident and announced that he would apologize to his victim and take responsibility, giving his "severe trauma" as the reason for his freaking out.

Arson in a wholesale market

On May 17, 2007, al-Masri was arrested for arson and then admitted to a psychiatric clinic in the city of Memmingen . He was accused of having set a fire in a Metro wholesale market in Neu-Ulm . He caused damage of almost 90,000 euros. According to the prosecutor, however, the fire was set so amateurishly that it could never have developed into a major fire. Al-Masri had previously argued several times with employees of the wholesale chain about a defective iPod , allegedly spat at a saleswoman and wrote threatening letters. The head of the Department of Forensic Psychiatry at the University of Munich, Norbert Nedopil , who was entrusted by al-Masri's lawyer Manfred Gnjidic with the psychiatric assessment of his client, sees reactions in al-Masri's behavior that are typical of torture victims.

In an article in Junge Welt , Manfred Gnjidic, al-Masri's lawyer, stated that secret services - presumably of American origin - had repeatedly intimidated al-Masri in the months before and wanted to blackmail him into cooperation. During the arrest in front of the Metro market, al-Masri said literally: "If I had only accepted the American offer at the time, I would not have the difficulties now." Since he and his family were often followed by strangers, he would have feared for his own Had children and not let them go to kindergarten for weeks. Once, at the end of 2006, al-Masri followed five cars for 20 kilometers on a night drive to Biberach on the four-lane federal road and wedged him from the front and back. Another time, an elderly gentleman ambushed him behind the shelves in a Turkish grocery store, "where no other German goes", and threatened him.

On December 11, 2007, the Memmingen Regional Court sentenced al-Masri to two years' imprisonment for dangerous bodily harm, insults, trespassing and arson. This was suspended on probation on condition that he continued his therapy. The court highlighted the events prior to al-Masri's actions as mitigating the penalty and wrote that injustice suffered by oneself is not an entitlement to commit injustice oneself. Al-Masri's extensive confession, his family situation and the fact that he never committed a crime before the CIA kidnapping were credited as mitigating sentences. The psychiatric assessor assumed that without the previous traumatic experience, al-Masri would not have committed the crimes he was accused of.

Attack on the Lord Mayor of Neu-Ulm

On September 11, 2009, al-Masri attacked the Mayor of Neu-Ulm , Gerold Noerenberg, in his office and hit him so that Noerenberg had to receive medical attention afterwards. Al-Masri had already tried to gain access to Noerenberg's office shortly before, but was prevented from doing so by town hall employees. Al-Masri was arrested two hours after his escape and detained in the Kempten correctional facility . There is no clear information about his motive. In a letter from custody, he expressed his anger that the city of Neu-Ulm was constantly approving new brothels and that the premises of the multicultural house are now being used as such.

On March 30, 2010, the Memmingen Regional Court sentenced al-Masri to two years' imprisonment without parole for willful assault.

Bodily injury to a prison employee

While serving this prison sentence, he hit a member of the staff so hard in the face in July 2010 in the Kempten prison in Allgäu that the man was unable to work for five weeks. For this, al-Masri was sentenced on April 4, 2011 to another four months without parole. In mid-2012, a journalist applied for a permit to conduct an interview. The application was rejected by the Kempten prison (Allgäu). The penal enforcement chamber at the Kempten Regional Court (Allgäu) obliged the institution on October 10, 2012 to approve the visit. The institute filed a legal complaint against this, which was rejected by the Munich Higher Regional Court on February 28, 2013. It could not "generally be assumed that a press interview with a prisoner would regularly hinder his integration within the meaning of Art 28 No. 2 BayStVollzG". On October 14, 2013, he was released from custody following a court judgment. After four days of freedom, Masri was arrested again at Neu-Ulm Central Station. The appeal process began on November 18, 2013. Because of the risk of escape, the accused remained in custody for the duration of the trial. Al-Masri ignored the court and his lawyer and remained silent. He was sentenced to 7 months in prison on December 11, 2013 and released on May 14, 2014.

literature

  • Dominik Steiger: The CIA, human rights and the Khaled el-Masri case: At the same time a contribution to the question of the applicability of the common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention to the “war on terror”. Universitätsverlag Potsdam, Potsdam 2007, ISBN 978-3-939469-63-6 .

See also

  • Murat Kurnaz - German Turk deported and tortured to Guantanamo
  • Abu Omar - kidnapped by CIA on the street in Milan
  • Maher Arar - Canadian national who was abducted to Syria and tortured there
  • Black Site - US international secret prisons

Web links

 Wikinews: Khaled al-Masri  - on the news

Individual evidence

  1. spiegel.de April 4, 2018: Macedonia apologizes to Khaled el-Masri
  2. a b The day on which Khaled el Masri disappeared. (No longer available online.) In: Netzeitung . netzeitung.de, December 8, 2005, archived from the original on September 16, 2009 ; Retrieved May 16, 2012 .
  3. Rainer Nübel, Gerd Elendt, Mathias Ritter God: CIA interviewed el-Masri after terrorist group. (No longer available online.) In: stern.de. January 27, 2006, archived from the original on June 13, 2018 ; accessed on February 20, 2019 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stern.de
  4. pca .: BND affair: Committee of inquiry: Masri, BND, Guantánamo and CIA . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . No. 55 , March 6, 2006, pp. 3 ( online , accessed May 16, 2012).
  5. Khaled al-Masri: Victims of the floppy hats . In: Gruner + Jahr (ed.): Financial Times Deutschland . June 23, 2006. online ( Memento of the original of September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ftd.de
  6. Rolf Kleine, Jan Meyer: The many inconsistencies in the El-Masri case: How did this Lebanese actually become a German? In: Bild.de. Axel Springer Verlag, January 31, 2007, accessed on May 16, 2012 .
  7. Bernd Pickert: Deported and trapped forever. (No longer available online.) In: taz.de. taz, the daily newspaper publishing cooperative, March 20, 2010, archived from the original on March 25, 2010 ; Retrieved December 9, 2010 .
  8. ^ A b Registrar of the Court: Grand Chamber hearing concerning alleged secret rendition of a man suspected of terrorist ties. European Court of Human Rights, May 16, 2012, accessed May 16, 2012 (UK English).
  9. ^ A b "Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake," Washington Post, December 4, 2005
  10. ^ FAZ , accessed on January 17, 2013.
  11. ^ The Rendition and Detention of German Citizen Khalid al-Masri. (No longer available online.) Central Intelligence Agency , July 16, 2007, formerly original ; accessed on December 31, 2016 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.cia.gov  
  12. Don Van Natta Jr., Souad Mekhhennet: German's Claim of Kidnapping Brings Investigation of US Link . In: The New York Times . The New York Times Company, New York City January 9, 2006 ( online , accessed April 3, 2009).
  13. Don Van Natta Jr., Souad Mekhhennet: German's Claim of Kidnapping Brings Investigation of US Link . In: The New York Times . The New York Times Company, New York City January 9, 2006 ( online , accessed December 12, 2012).
  14. a b Ulrich Neumann, Fritz Schmaldienst: The El-Masri case: Were there any contacts in the Islamist scene? In: Report Mainz . Süddeutscher Rundfunk, October 16, 2006, accessed on May 16, 2012 .
  15. "Beckstein closes Islamist meeting point in Neu-Ulm" (FAZ)
  16. ^ BKA escort for terror suspects , Der Spiegel online, December 20, 2005
  17. Terror suspect Fritz G .: The homeland as a mortal enemy - SPIEGEL ONLINE - news - politics
  18. Spiegel Online - Bombmaker from the Province: Fritz G., 28 - the ringleader from Ulm
  19. a b FAZ.net December 14, 2005: CIA affair in the Bundestag
  20. ^ Al Masri's lawsuit against former CIA boss dismissed , FAZ, May 19, 2006
  21. ^ The Wronged Man , Washington Post, Nov. 29, 2006
  22. a b Linda Greenhouse, in New York Times : Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Torture Appeal , October 10, 2007 ( online ), accessed April 3, 2009
  23. Report on al-Masri's statement about "Sam" (RP online)
  24. Germany Weighs if It Played Role in Seizure by US , The New York Times, February 21, 2006
  25. BKA official has a counter-statement published in “Die Welt” ( memento from January 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), fairpress.biz
  26. Are you Sam? , Stern, April 19, 2006
  27. Al Masri's statements divide investigative committee (tagesschau.de) (tagesschau.de archive)
  28. Constitutional complaint by the lawyer from El Masri against telephone surveillance successful (BVerfG press release no. 55/2007 of May 16, 2007)
  29. "The Khaled el-Masri case: German justice chases CIA command" (spiegel.de)
  30. spiegel.de: kidnapping: Masri lawyer criticizes surrender to the CIA - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Politik
  31. ^ I am not a state secret
  32. General-Anzeiger Bonn (dpa), page 4, June 10, 2008 El Masri sued the Ministry of Justice
  33. Macedonia has to pay el-Masri 60,000 euros in compensation for pain and suffering at Spiegel Online , December 13, 2012 (accessed on December 14, 2012).
  34. Stern (magazine) : Al-Masri's criminal liability will be examined May 18, 2007
  35. "Investigations: Masri is said to have beaten trainers" (focus.de) ( Memento from April 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  36. Jump up ↑ Die Welt : Victim, Psychopath and Arsonist on May 18, 2007
  37. Arrest for arson - CIA victim Masri admitted to psychiatry , May 17, 2007, sueddeutsche.de
  38. a b Suspended sentence for Khaled El Masri ( Memento of the original from December 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Südwest-Presse, December 21, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.suedwest-aktiv.de
  39. Berliner Zeitung : The act of the victim May 19, 2007
  40. C. Neumann, H. Stark: Out of control . In: Der Spiegel . No. 21 , 2007, p. 50 ( Online - May 21, 2007 ).
  41. ^ Jürgen Elsässer : "El Masri was deliberately terrorized" , Junge Welt , October 23, 2007
  42. Two years probation for Masri , Spiegel-Online, December 11, 2007
  43. "Khaled el-Masri attacks the mayor of Neu-Ulm" , Spiegel-Online, September 11, 2009
  44. Schwäbische Zeitung : El Masri comes to court on March 25th, January 21st, 2010, accessed on March 22nd, 2010
  45. "Revenge for brothels as motive for El Masri's attack?" Augsburger Allgemeine from October 20, 2009
  46. Verdict: CIA victim El-Masri has to be imprisoned for two years - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - Politics
  47. FAZ.net: "Prison for el Masri" article from March 30, 2010.
  48. ^ Augsburger Allgemeine: El Masri sentenced to imprisonment
  49. Prohibition of a visit to a prisoner by a correctional facility . OLG Munich, January 28, 2013, 4 Ws 202/12 (R). At www.gesetze-bayern.de.
  50. ^ Allgäuer Zeitung: After the Kempten court ruling: El Masri is free again
  51. ↑ The appeal process against El Masri begins today in Kempten.
  52. Khaled El Masri at large , May 15, 2014.