JURIST - Paper Chase: El-Masri testifies before Spanish judge investigating renditions

[JURIST] Khaled el-Masri [JURIST news archive] wept Monday as he testified before a Spanish judge about his alleged extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] to Afghanistan by US intelligence agents. El-Masri, a German citizen born in Kuwait, described how he was abducted in December 2003 while vacationing along the Serbian-Madedonian border, tortured for 23 days at a Skopje hotel, and then flown to Kabul, where he was imprisoned and tortured for five months before being released without charge in Albania. El-Masri believes the agents intended to seize a suspected terrorist with a similar name.

El-Masri was the first witness to testify during National Court Judge Ismael Moreno's investigation of whether CIA rendition flights stopped at Spanish airports [JURIST report] before transferring terrorism suspects to countries where they could be tortured. In June, a German investigator concluded that no evidence has surfaced to disprove el-Masri's allegations [JURIST report] that he was abducted, transferred and harshly interrogated. The American Civil Liberties Union has appealed the dismissal of a US lawsuit suit by el-Masri [JURIST report] against CIA officials. AP has more.

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