[fastpat]

You never know with the little fuhrer in the White House.

Germans issue arrest warrants for 13 suspected CIA agents

BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for 13 suspected CIA agents over their alleged kidnapping three years ago of a German citizen, authorities said Wednesday.

The unidentified agents are being sought on suspicion of the wrongful imprisonment of Khaled al-Masri and causing him serious bodily harm, Munich prosecutor Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld told The Associated Press. He said the warrants were issued in the last few days.

Al-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, says he was abducted in December 2003 at the Serbian-Macedonian border and flown by the CIA to a detention center in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was abused.

He says he was released in Albania in May 2004, and that his captors told him he was seized in a case of mistaken identity.

Rights campaigners have seized on al-Masri's story to press the United States to stop flying terrorism suspects to countries other than the U.S. where they could face abuse — a practice known as "extraordinary rendition." Italy has issued arrest warrants for alleged CIA agents in a separate case.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other U.S. officials have declined to address the case. However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the United States has acknowledged making a mistake with al-Masri.

The German government refused comment on the arrest warrants, citing the ongoing judicial proceedings. The CIA also declined to comment.

Germany's NDR television released a list of the names of the suspected agents — 11 men and 2 women — it said its reporters had obtained. It said three had been contacted by its reporters and had refused comment.

Though the prosecutors' office refused to confirm the names, Schmidt-Sommerfeld said "the personal details contained in the arrest warrants are, according to our current knowledge, aliases of CIA agents."

"Further investigation will, among other things, concentrate on trying to determine the clear identities of the suspects," he said in a statement.

Al-Masri's attorney, Manfred Gnjidic, said the issuing of the arrest warrants were "a very important step in the rehabilitation of al-Masri."

"It shows us that we were right in putting our trust in the German authorities and the German prosecutors," he said at a news conference.

Prosecutors were led to the suspects after receiving a list in December 2005 of possible people involved in the kidnapping compiled by a Spanish journalist from sources within Spain's Civil Guard, a paramilitary police unit that answers to the Interior Ministry, Schmidt-Sommerfeld said.

With help from Spanish authorities, they were then able to pursue an investigation against "concrete persons," Schmidt-Sommerfeld said.

Tips were also received from others, including the Milan prosecutor's office and Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who led an inquiry into CIA renditions on behalf of the Council of Europe. Schmidt-Sommerfeld did not elaborate on what the tips were.

The CIA agents are suspected to have flown in January 2004 aboard a Boeing 737 from the Spanish island of Palma de Mallorca to pick up al-Masri after he had been detained by Macedonian authorities, Munich prosecutor August Stern said.

ARD television has reported that investigators worked from passport photocopies made by a hotel where the suspects stayed, but Stern said he could not confirm that or other details. The report last year gave what it said were the cover names of three men who were pilots and lived in the U.S. state of North Carolina.

In October, Munich prosecutors said that, based on the list, they were seeking to ban several CIA agents suspected of kidnapping al-Masri from entering German territory. They did not elaborate.

In a separate case, Italian authorities are seeking the arrest of 26 Americans, all but one believed to be CIA agents, in connection with the 2003 kidnapping in Milan of Egyptian cleric and terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr.

The U.S. Justice Department has declined to provide Munich prosecutors assistance, citing ongoing legal proceedings in the United States.

Al-Masri has asked a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, to reinstate a lawsuit seeking compensation that he filed against the CIA. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in May, ruling that a trial could harm national security by revealing details about CIA activities.

At the State Department in Washington, deputy spokesman Tom Casey said the U.S. would review the allegations. "Certainly we will take a look at that information once it is actually made available," he said.

But he declined further comment, referring to the ongoing U.S. litigation. "I don't think there is really much that we can say given those circumstances," he said.

The German government has said it learned of the al-Masri case only after his release. In late 2005, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the then-U.S. ambassador to Germany had told his predecessor, Otto Schily, about it on May 31, 2004.

Schaeuble said Ambassador Dan Coats provided no details of al-Masri's treatment, but told Schily that "one had apologized to him (al-Masri) and agreed confidentiality and paid him a sum of money."

Lawyer Gnjidic has said al-Masri denies receiving either an apology or money.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-01-31-germany_x.htm