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Europe

German terrorists describe hatred of US as motivation

2009-08-14

The terror suspects on trial for plotting attacks against American targets in Germany claim their actions were driven by hatred against a country they believe is waging war against Islam. The men say their targets were US soldiers -- and they wanted to kill many of them. At the time al-Qaida attacked the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, Fritz Gelowicz was still opposed to the act of terror. But a little over a year later, the young man from southern Germany, who converted to Islam at the age of 16, was already determined to "someday take part in the jihad." He says he was motivated by the United States' "unconditional support" for Israel. Gelowicz felt there was "a war by the USA against Islam." Gelowicz, 29, has been sitting in the dock since June as the main defendant in the so-called "Sauerland Cell" trial against four homegrown German jihadists who are accused of planning a series of bomb attacks in Germany in the fall of 2007. Authorities arrested the men in September 2007 in the town of Medebach-Oberschledorn in the Sauerland region of western German after uncovering the terror plot. At the time, prosecutors claim three of the defendants were trying to convert hydrogen peroxide into explosive material in a rented vacation home. Gelowicz has already hinted that the men were planning to carry out an attack at the start of October, around the time Germany's parliament was set to vote on an extension of the mandate of the military's deployment in Afghanistan. The four accused -- Gelowicz, Daniel Schneider, Adem Yilmaz and Atilla Selek -- have already confessed. The testimony they gave to officials at the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in June, July and August fills more than 1,100 pages. On Monday, the men began to testify publicly on the stand in their trial at a higher regional court in Düsseldorf. It's the first time that all the members of a terror cell have revealed their inner workings. Investigators have never before been given such comprehensive information about the creation of a terror plot, training in terror camps in Pakistan's Waziristan region or the obscure Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), the Uzbek terror group on whose behalf Gelowicz and his accomplices were apparently acting. That the suspects have been so open probably has to do with the fact that they have been given the prospect of lighter sentences if they cooperate. Generally, investigators have been astonished by their openness. The confessions have also shed light on another aspect of the case: the suspects' unconditional hatred of the US. Although they wanted to strike in Europe, their main intended targets were American soldiers. "We didn't want to kill two or three soldiers, but rather many," Gelowicz told the court on Monday. Gelowicz gave particularly vivid testimony to the BKA about how he quickly got the feeling after 9/11 that the US was waging a war against Islam -- and that this was happening in his own backyard. He told investigators he felt that the war on terror had come within just meters' reach of him in 2004. He described a man who used to sit with his children inside a Muslim prayer room that Gelowicz frequented in his hometown, the Bavarian city of Neu-Ulm, noting that one day the man vanished. Gelowicz later learned from a friend that the man had been kidnapped by the CIA. It turns out that the story was true. The man he spoke of was Khaled el-Masri, a German-Lebanese man who had been kidnapped by the US intelligence service in Macedonia in late December 2003 and taken to Afghanistan. There, he was detained and interrogated for five months before the case was found to be one of mistaken identity. Adem Yilmaz also told the BKA that it had mainly been the excesses in the US "war against terror" that had pushed him to take the path to militancy. An attack against US soldiers in Germany, he said, would be "targeted retaliation." He added that the actions "would please detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and also at Guantanamo. That was the most important thing to me." The attacks were also intended as a protest against what "these pigs" were doing to innocent people in places like Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Yilmaz called it a "defensive jihad." Interestingly, the four defendants didn't start out with the intention of committing terrorist attacks. On the contrary, Gelowicz and Yilmaz claimed they initially wanted to go to the front as fighters, preferably in Iraq. However, they were not successful in their attempt to make contact with the appropriate middlemen during a stay in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Then they considered going to Chechnya, where Islamist insurgents are active, but that plan also came to nothing. Finally they came into contact with an IJU member who was able to get them to Waziristan, where they received training near the town of Mir Ali. Even there, so they allegedly told the IJU, they wanted to take part in active fighting. But then the leaders of the terrorist group suggested that they return to Europe in order to carry out terror attacks. Yilmaz and Gelowicz both say, in mutually corroborating testimony, that they were initially reluctant. But then they agreed to the plan. Gelowicz told the BKA that the IJU's argument that an attack in Europe would be of "more use to the jihad" convinced him. After all, the IJU told him, it was easier to fight US soldiers in Germany than in Pakistan. Finally persuaded by the argument, Gelowicz came to conclusion that one could wreak "great damage" in Germany with a relatively small operation. In Germany, he said, it was even possible to meet US soldiers "in their free time." He stressed that he didn't need to be "brainwashed" in order to accept the mission. Gelowicz was able to experience at first hand just how difficult it was to fight the US Army in Afghanistan. Before his return to Germany, he spent about four weeks with the IJU on the Pakistani-Afghan border. Several times he crossed over the border to carry out reconnaissance of a US base in Afghanistan, but the IJU fighters were not able to lure the American soldiers out of their stronghold. Gelowicz told the court on Monday that for every successful attack on US soldiers, he estimated there were 10 failed ones -- and even then all that had been achieved was to "destroy one of the Americans' cars." In the coming weeks, the defendants will undoubtedly have to tell the court in greater detail about the targets they had in mind. So far, it is clear that they were planning to attack nightclubs and bars frequented by US soldiers. They also discussed Ramstein air base as a possible target. In addition, the defendants wanted to send a signal both to the German population and to the Uzbek government, but Gelowicz made it sound as though there was no specific intention to kill German civilians. The alleged terror cell did, however, want to kill US soldiers. They were the main enemy -- regardless whether they were in Afghanistan or in Germany.

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Europe

US rendition victim gets suspended sentence

2007-12-12

A Lebanese-born German who was held by the CIA in Afghanistan was given a suspended sentence on Tuesday for arson and other crimes committed after his return to Germany. Khaled el-Masri, whose capture in 2003 by CIA agents upset US- German relations, admitted setting fire to a store, assault and breach of the peace at the start of his trial on Monday. The court in southern city of Memmingen handed down a two-year suspended sentence after el-Masri claimed his actions were in part due to the belated result of his abduction to Afghanistan and mental distress suffered after his return to Germany. The sentence was the same as that demanded by the prosecution, but four months less than what the defence asked for. The defence argued that he was not fully accountable for his actions. The court also ordered el-Masri, a father of six, to undergo psychiatric counselling. For his actions or for fathering six kids? This is the EU. El-Masri, 44, was charged with setting fire to three jerry-cans of petrol and causing 300,000 euros (440,000 dollars) worth of damage to a cash-and-carry store in Neu-Ulm in Bavaria state in May after an argument about a purchase. He is also convicted of insulting staff and assaulting a supervisor who challenged him about his absenteeism at the firm where he was employed in January. At Monday's hearing el-Masri's lawyer described how his client was picked up by CIA agents in Macedonia on December 31, 2003, apparently because his name was identical to that of a wanted terrorism suspect. He was then taken to Afghanistan in a practice known as "extraordinary rendition" and questioned for six months before being flown back to Europe and dumped in a forest in Albania when the US realized they had the wrong man. One his return to Germany he was not given any support and denied access to therapy, he said. He still felt persecuted and thought the intelligence services were following him. "I was in a state of stress at the time and did not feel safe," his lawyer quoted him as saying in explanation of his client's violent behaviour. Passing sentence, the court said it had taken into account el-Masri's admission of guilt, the fact that he had apologized to his victims and the traumatic effects of his abduction to Afghanistan. Before his abduction he had lived 20 years in Germany and had never been in trouble with the authorities, the court said. But the feeling that he had been wronged did not give him the right to act unjustly himself, the court added. Washington was upset when German prosecutors posted international arrest warrants for 13 US citizens believed to be agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency on suspicion of involvement in the abduction of el-Masri.

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Europe

Khaled el-Masri admits to Arson, Blames CIA

2007-12-11

A man who claims the CIA kidnapped and tortured him in a case of mistaken identity fell into criminality after returning to Germany because of his treatment by the U.S., his attorney said as his arson trial opened Monday. Khaled el-Masri, a 44-year-old German of Lebanese descent, faces charges of arson, serious bodily injury and slander for two incidents this year. In one, officials say, he attempted to set fire to a store after an argument with sales staff escalated. The admission should be good for six .. months in an EU country club prison. Defense lawyer Manfred Gnjidic told the state court in the southern town of Memmingen that his client admitted the charges against him, but argued el-Masri was suffering the aftereffects of his ordeal at the hands of the Americans and accused the German government of not giving him the psychiatric help he needed. He said el-Masri sees "shadows behind every corner." El-Masri could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, but before the trial Gnjidic said he hoped that the court would sentence his client to no more than two years' probation with psychiatric therapy. El-Masri is best known for his assertion that he was mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers and was kidnapped while attempting to enter Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003. He claims he was flown to a CIA-run prison known as the "salt pit" in Afghanistan, where he was beaten and sexually abused with an object during five months in captivity before being released in Albania in May 2004. El-Masri's claims, which prompted strong international criticism of the rendition program, were backed by European investigations and U.S. news reports. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that U.S. officials acknowledged that el-Masri's detention was a mistake. The U.S. government has neither confirmed nor denied el-Masri's account and, in urging the court not to hear the case, said that the facts central to el-Masri's claims "concern the highly classified methods and means of the program." Gnjidic told the court that el-Masri admitted getting into a heated argument with two saleswomen over the return of an MP3 player he had purchased, and spitting at one of them. The slander accusation comes from that incident. He then returned to the store with four gas canisters and set a fire outside a side entrance that caused $147,000 in water and smoke damage. The attorney said el-Masri also admitted punching an official at a driver's testing center who told him that he had missed too many hours in his training as a truck driver. The man was treated in the hospital for head injuries.

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Home Front: Politix

Five Myths About Rendition (not the movie)

2007-10-21

By Daniel Benjamin With hearings in Congress, legal cases bouncing up to the Supreme Court and complaints from Canada and our European allies, the issue of rendition is everywhere. There's even a new, eponymously titled movie in a theater near you, starring Reese Witherspoon as a bereft wife whose innocent husband gets kidnapped and Meryl Streep as the frosty CIA chief who ordered the snatch. Like most covert actions and much of the war on al-Qaeda, the practice is shrouded in mystery -- and, increasingly, the suspicion that it's synonymous with torture and lawlessness. In fact, the term "rendition" in the counterterrorism context means nothing more than moving someone from one country to another, outside the formal process of extradition. For the CIA, rendition has become a key tool for getting terrorists from places where they're causing trouble to places where they can't. The problem is where these people are taken and what happens to them when they get there. As a former director for counterterrorism policy on the National Security Council staff, I've been involved with the issue of rendition for nearly a decade -- and some of the myths surrounding it need to be cleared up. 1. Rendition is something the Bush administration cooked up. Nope. George W. Bush was still struggling to coax oil out of the ground when the United States "rendered to justice" its first suspect from abroad. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan authorized an operation that lured Lebanese hijacker Fawaz Younis to a boat off the coast of Cyprus, where FBI agents arrested him. (Younis had participated in the 1985 hijacking of a Jordanian plane and was implicated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847, which left a U.S. Navy diver dead.) President George H.W. Bush approved the kidnapping in 1990 of Mexican physician Humberto Alvarez Machain, who was believed to be involved in the torture and killing of a Drug Enforcement Administration official. Nothing says that renditions can involve only suspected terrorists; Israel's abduction of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960 could be called a rendition, though the term was not yet in use. Beginning in 1995, the Clinton administration turned up the speed with a full-fledged program to use rendition to disrupt terrorist plotting abroad. According to former director of central intelligence George J. Tenet, about 70 renditions were carried out before Sept. 11, 2001, most of them during the Clinton years. 2. People who are "rendered" inevitably end up in a foreign slammer -- or worse. Actually, that's not a foregone conclusion. Alvarez was brought to the United States. So was Mir Aimal Kansi, who killed two CIA employees in their cars outside the agency's Langley headquarters in 1993, and Ramzi Yousef, the architect of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Both were apprehended in Pakistan, whose leaders decided that the nation would rather not have those two -- folk heroes to some -- sitting in jail, awaiting extradition. Pakistan's leaders feared that cooperating with the United States would be dangerously unpopular, so they wanted the suspects out of the country quickly. For many pro-U.S. Muslim leaders, that concern has only deepened as anti-Americanism has soared. By my count, most renditions since 1995 have involved moving individuals from one foreign country to another -- not grabbing someone in Washington and carting them off to North Africa, as happens to Witherspoon's onscreen husband. Such operations typically occur in secret because, again, Muslim leaders (especially in the Arab world) want to shield their cooperation with Washington from their anti-American publics. The CIA has acted as a go-between, arranging the transfers and providing transportation. Usually those being rendered are not brought to the United States because, while the U.S. government may have an abundance of intelligence showing their malfeasance, it doesn't have enough courtroom evidence. There's a big difference between the two. One other safeguard: During the Clinton years, the United States required the country that received a rendered person to have some kind of legal process against the suspect -- an arrest warrant or indictment, for example. It's not clear whether that is still the case. Perhaps Michael Mukasey, President Bush's attorney general nominee, can check. 3. Step one of a rendition involves kidnapping the suspect. The individual may feel as though he's being kidnapped, but that's not usually what's going on. Most of the time, the person is detained by the authorities of the country he is in. They will then hand him off to the CIA, which will fly him to his destination. In rare cases when the country of residence is a hostile one, an "extraordinary rendition" can be carried out: a covert effort to abduct the suspect and spirit him out of the country. The CIA put considerable time into efforts to capture Osama bin Laden this way from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s. Had it worked, it would have been an extraordinary rendition -- and Americans would have cheered. 4. Rendition is just a euphemism for outsourcing torture. Well, not historically. The guidelines for Clinton-era renditions required that subjects could be sent only to countries where they were not likely to be tortured -- countries that gave assurances to that effect and whose compliance was monitored by the State Department and the intelligence community. It's impossible to be certain that those standards were upheld every time, but serious efforts were made to see that they were. At a minimum, countries with indisputably lousy human rights records (say, Syria) were off-limits. Another key difference: Renditions before Bush were carried out to disrupt terrorist activity, not to gather intelligence or to interrogate individuals. Now, though, the Bush team seems to have dramatically eroded such safeguards. If you wonder, "gee, why is that?", the answer is 9/11. The administration has apparently sent someone to Syria, and Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen, was evidently grabbed in Macedonia and interrogated in Afghanistan in a manner that sure sounds like torture. In light of this and other revelations, the criticism that the administration has "defined down" torture looks pretty persuasive. It's probably a good bet that Congress or the next administration will reform the program, or abolish it outright. 5. Pretty much anyone -- including U.S. citizens and green card holders -- can be rendered these days. Not so, although the movie "Rendition" -- in which Witherspoon's Egyptian-born husband gets the black-hood treatment and is yanked from a U.S. airport and taken to a North African chamber of horrors -- is bound to spread this myth. A "U.S. person" (citizen or legal resident) has constitutional protections against being removed from the country through rendition, and there have been no incidents to suggest the contrary. In fairness, though, the ghastly case of Maher Arar -- a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who convincingly says he was detained at New York's JFK Airport, handed off to Syria and tortured -- is way too close for comfort.

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Home Front: WoT

Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit Against CIA

2007-10-10

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review a lawsuit brought by a German man who says he was kidnapped and tortured by agents of the Central Intelligence Agency. The high court rejected the appeal of Khaled el-Masri without explanation. El-Masri is a German citizen of Lebanese descent who says he was kidnapped by CIA agents in Macedonia in 2003 and then taken to Afghanistan where he was held for months and tortured by his captors. "And then they turned me into a newt, yer honor!" "Case dismissed!"

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Europe

Germany gives up on extradition attempts

2007-09-23

Germany has given up efforts to extradite 13 suspected CIA agents from the United States in connection with the kidnapping a German citizen in 2003, the Justice Ministry says. Earlier this year, a Munich court ordered the arrest of the 13 on suspicion of kidnapping Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese descent who says he was flown from Macedonia to Afghanistan where he was imprisoned for months and tortured. The chief prosecutor for the Bavarian state capital made a formal request to the German federal government in Berlin that it ask Washington to extradite the 13 to Germany for trial. But US officials have refused to meet the demand. "The Americans have said quite clearly they will not extradite," a Justice Ministry spokeswoman said. That couldn't have been a surprise to anyone. The development means Germany will not be able to institute proceedings against the suspected CIA agents. The Masri case has focused media attention on CIA kidnappings of suspected terrorists for interrogation in third countries. The practice, called "extraordinary rendition", has caused tensions inside Germany, and between Berlin and Washington. The abduction and interrogation of Murat Kurnaz, a German-born Turk, also put the CIA and Germany's links with the organisation under scrutiny. Kurnaz was captured in 2001 and held for 4 and a half years at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. Especially damning was Kurnaz's unconfirmed allegation that German troops in Afghanistan had participated in his abuse. Kurnaz was happy to say anything to stir the pot. It's in the al-Qaeda playbook. Berlin says both Kurnaz and Masri were innocent and their arrests a mistake. Despite media scrutiny of the two cases, analysts say German cooperation with the CIA is close, with Berlin and Washington working together to fight terrorism.

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Europe

Bid to arrest CIA rendition team splits German cabinet

2007-07-10

A German prosecutor's request for the arrest of 10 US men suspected of forming a CIA rendition team has split the German government, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported. A parliamentary inquiry in Berlin has heard Lebanese-born German national, Khaled el-Masri, testify that he was detained in Macedonia and held in a jail in Afghanistan for several months in 2004 on suspicion of terrorism. The Munich prosecutor has asked Berlin to formally request US police to arrest and extradite 10 alleged agents. Der Spiegel said senior ministers debated the issue in Chancellor Angela Merkel's office on Wednesday, with Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble opposed and arguing that the request would ruin German-US intelligence cooperation. Yup, sure would. Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries had argued that the request should be passed on to Washington to formally complete the inquiry. An official of her ministry, which has the final say, confirmed Saturday that the issue was still the subject of "intense discussion." Der Spiegel said US diplomats have objected vocally to the whole German inquiry into el-Masri's ordeal. The practice of extraordinary rendition - arresting people outside the United States and holding them abroad beyond the reach of US courts - has caused fierce controversy in Europe. German law allows prosecution of crimes against German nationals anywhere in the world, though no German officials really expect the US to actually extradite its own agents for trial.

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Europe

Council of Europe urges compensation for "rendition"

2007-06-28

Strasbourg (dpa) - The Council of Europe (CoE) on Wednesday called for detainees who had been held by US intelligence services as part of so-called "extraordinary rendition" flights and secret prison programmes to be paid jizya compensated and rehabilitated. I got yer rehabilitation right here. In a resolution passed by a majority of lawmakers in the council's parliamentary assembly, the body also called on the governments of its 47 member states to fully clarify details of any illegal CIA activities known to have taken place in their jurisdiction. Legislators cited the case of Lebanese-German Khaled el-Masri, who in 2003 was kidnapped while on holidays in Macedonia and flown to Afghanistan, and "is still waiting for his rehabilitation and for compensation he is entitled to." Macedonia is lovely that time of year, but it doesn't compare to Afghanistan. The declaration followed debate on a hard-hitting report by Swiss moonbat legislator Dick Marty on the alleged covert activities of US intelligence services in Europe. This is how lies gain traction. Marty's questions regarding alleged illegal CIA activity had however been met with a "wall of silence" by many European governments, he said at the opening of the debate in Strasbourg. "Many countries hide behind the idea of state secrecy in order to cover up human rights abuses," he continued. "That is unacceptable." Thus justifying the fact that he has no evidence. Evil gummints wouldn't turn it over, you see. Marty had following over a year of research and discussions with high-ranking intelligence officers in the United States and Europe concluded that suspects were detained by US intelligence services in Poland and Romania during the period 2002-2005. "We had always cross-referenced information from both sides of the Atlantic," he said in response to objections by Polish legislators accusing him of having no proof. Sources spoken to as part of the probe were "believable and high- level," he said. The governments concerned have however rejected Marty's claims. "He's nuts, and we aren't paying any money to these mooks. Now go away." However following the admission by US President George W Bush that such covert detention facilities existed, Marty's assertions could no longer be doubted, President of the Parliamentary Assembly Rene van der Linden said. The council was not concerned with condemning Poland or Romania, Marty said, emphasising that the investigation was focussed on "bringing the truth to light." Human rights abuses were not to be tolerated, also in the war against terrorism, German legislator Christoph Straesser said. Some former detainees had given accounts of mistreatment to Marty, alleging that they were deprived of food, housed in small cells, exposed to extremes of heat or cold and endured weeks of isolation during their detention. Sounds like a stretch in any national prison in North America or Europe. And better than a prison in Turkey.

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Europe

German prosecutors to seek custody of CIA agents

2007-04-09

Munich (dpa) - German prosecutors said Thursday they will make a new attempt to bring 13 CIA workers to justice for the abduction of a German-Lebanese citizen mistakenly suspected of terrorism. "We will submit an application for temporary custody in the United States," Chief Prosecutor August Stern said in Munich, two months after a court in the city issued arrest warrants for the 13. Umm, no. The suspects are believed to be the crew and passengers of an aircraft that flew Lebanese-born Khaled el-Masri from Macedonia to Afghanistan in 2003. Masri alleges he was secretly detained for five months in Kabul then dumped by his captors in Albania. His lawyers say he is an innocent victim of the CIA practice of the "extraordinary rendition" of terrorism suspects that has caused intense controversy in several European countries. Munich prosecutors said the new application will be relayed to US authorities via the Justice Ministry in Berlin. Most of the suspects live in the US state of North Carolina, according to German reports. Following a request by the Munich court, Interpol issued warrants for 10 of the 13 agents, accusing them of abduction and causing serious bodily harm. German officials say they expect little help from the US and the 13 are unlikely to be detained unless they return to a European Union country. Looks like you boys are staying home for a while. Last month a US appeals court refused to allow Masri's lawsuit against former CIA director George Tenet to go to court. The US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia upheld the decision of a lower court that said a trial could reveal state secrets and endanger national security. The suit charges Tenet knew Masri had been held even after the agency had realized his capture was a mistake. Masri says his main goal is an apology from the US government. He is also seeking damages of at least 75,000 dollars. So his main goal is the money.

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Europe

CIA alleged abductee faces brawl charges

2007-02-07

Khaled el-Masri, the German whose abduction as a supposed terrorist caused an international furore, faces a charge of assault after punching a welfare manager, prosecutors said. El-Masri, a Lebanese-born Muslim, allegedly lost his temper Monday when the counsellor rebuked him for repeatedly failing to show up for lessons. El-Masri, 43, is unemployed and was being retrained as a truck driver (!) at public expense. Prosecutors in his hometown, Ulm, confirmed an assault inquiry. A newspaper, Suedwest Presse, said a training firm had been hired to groom el-Masri for a job, but his attendance at the driving course which began in early December had been poor. The counsellor spent three days in hospital with his injuries after being beaten up, the newspaper said. Manfred Gnjidic, el-Masri's lawyer, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, "Masri is very sorry about what happened. If he did lose his control, because of the severe trauma he has been through, he is going to apologize to the victim and take responsibility for it." And in other news: This week, German authorities issued warrants for the arrest of 13 persons believed to be CIA agents. The 13 allegedly seized el-Masri on December 31, 2003 in Macedonia and took him to Afghanistan to torture. El-Masri is separately suing in US courts for compensation. Despite this week's arrest warrants, Munich officials admit they do not even know where in the world the 13 are, nor if they are listed under their true or assumed names. The United States had not responded to requests to identify them. Snicker.

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Europe

CIA 'kidnappers' ordered arrested

2007-01-31

GERMAN prosecutors have ordered arrest warrants for 13 people working for the CIA in connection with the alleged kidnapping of a Lebanese-born German man, public broadcaster NDR reported today. Authorities in the southern city of Munich are probing allegations by Khaled el-Masri that he was abducted by US agents in the Macedonian capital Skopje on New Year's Eve 2003 and flown to a prison in Afghanistan for interrogation before he was released five months later in Albania. Masri has claimed without substantiating evidence said he was tortured while imprisoned. The Munich prosecutor's office declined to confirm the report. NDR said that the 13 suspects were facing charges of abduction and grievous bodily harm. The broadcaster said most of the CIA employees sought lived in the US state of North Carolina. NDR noted that the German arrest warrants were not valid in the US and that US authorities had refused to cooperate with the investigation. If the suspects were to travel to the EU, however, they could be arrested. NDR said that German investigators had identified the 13 suspects with the help of the Spanish police because several so-called CIA rendition operations started from the airport in Palma de Mallorca. The report quoted Spain's Civil Guard as saying that Masri was seized by 13 CIA agents and flown on a Boeing 737 to Afghanistan. The Spanish authorities learned the identities of all 13 agents on board and had copies of some of their passports. Although all of the names given were believed to be aliases, NDR said it was possible, using other data, to learn their real names. Great tradecraft there, CIA. That'll teach you to think that the Europeans are our friends and that you can relax your standards when over there. The report said three of the suspects worked for Aero Contractors, believed to be the CIA's secret airline. Beyond the criminal investigation, the German parliament has launched a probe into Masri's case that has heard witnesses including Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his predecessor Joschka Fischer. Count on Joschka to be at any anti-American proceeding. Masri is also pursuing a compensation claim against the CIA in US courts. He is one of the best-known cases of the "extraordinary renditions" undertaken by the CIA as part of US anti-terror efforts.

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Europe

Germany bans Bavarian Islamist group

2005-12-28

The German state of Bavaria banned a radical Islamist group on Wednesday, saying materials seized from its offices urged Muslims to murder Jews and Christians. "With today‘s ban of the Multi-Kultur-Haus (MKH) association, Bavaria is making the limits clear to supporters of foreign extremist organisations," the state‘s interior minister, Guenther Beckstein, said in a statement. He said authorities raided the association‘s offices on Wednesday morning and seized a number of items. As the group is based in Bavaria, the ban effectively shuts it down. Bavarian authorities had been watching the MHK in the town of Neu-Ulm for some time. Security officials had previously seized textbooks and other publications, materials Beckstein said clearly showed the group‘s radical nature. One book seized from the MHK library called on Sunni Muslims to "execute Jews and Christians as infidels," the statement said. An audio cassette said: "Oh worthy ones, oh friends of love, send us bombs to kill the Jews with. No to the Jews, no to the Jews!" A confiscated compact disc glorified the death of martyrs and described the rebellion in Chechnya as "a wonderful example of Islamic unity thanks to brother Muslims from all over the world who have joined the Jihad." Beckstein, who has deported Islamists in the past for what Germany calls "preaching hate," warned of further moves against any similar groups. "Organisations which are aggressive in nature ... and call for the use of violence will not be tolerated here," he said. Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin who was mistakenly kidnapped by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and imprisoned for five months in Afghanistan, is from Neu-Ulm. A German security official told Reuters last week that Masri appeared to be a fringe player on the town‘s Islamist scene before he was seized by the CIA under its "rendition" policy of moving terrorism suspects from one country to another. A Hamburg-based cell of al Qaeda has been blamed for the September 11 attacks on America. Since then, Germany has cracked down on Muslim militants living in the country and has had a number of high-profile trials of radical Islamists.

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