Free Republic

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday terminated a lawsuit from a man who claims he was abducted and tortured by the CIA, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if the case were allowed to proceed. Khaled el-Masri, 44, alleged that he was kidnapped by CIA agents in Europe and held in an Afghan prison for four months in a case of mistaken identity. The administration has not publicly acknowledged that el-Masri was detained, and lower courts dismissed his suit after the administration asserted that state secrets would be revealed if the lawsuit were not...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A German citizen who says he was kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured overseas by the CIA lost his appeal on Tuesday when the Supreme Court refused to review a decision dismissing the case because it would expose state secrets. Attorneys for Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese descent, argued in the high court appeal that his lawsuit did not depend on the disclosure of state secrets and that it should be allowed to go forward in U.S. court. His case, in which Masri said he was abducted in Macedonia, flown to Afghanistan and tortured, has drawn worldwide attention...

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 said he was tortured while imprisoned. The Munich prosecutor's office declined to confirm the report. NDR said that the 13 suspects...

WASHINGTON, April 22 - A German citizen detained for five months in an Afghan prison was released in May 2004 on direct orders from Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, after she learned the man had been mistakenly identified as a terror suspect, government officials said Friday. The officials, who confirmed an account of Ms. Rice's decision that was first reported by NBC News, said that when Khaled el-Masri was taken from a bus on the Serbian-Macedonian border on Dec. 31, 2003, the Macedonian and the American authorities believed he was a member of Al Qaeda who had trained...