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‘Innocent German jailed by US in Afghanistan’

WASHINGTON: A German citizen suspected of being a terrorist was whisked out of Macedonia by the CIA in 2003 and imprisoned in Afghanistan for six months even though halfway through his detention it became clear he was completely innocent, NBC News said late on Thursday. Khaled El-Masri was held in secret at an Afghan prison nicknamed the “Salt Pit” for three months while Central Intelligence Agency agents considered what to do with him, until Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security adviser to President George W Bush, ordered him set free. Masri’s case highlights the highly controversial practice of so-called “rendition” used by US officials to capture suspected terrorists and jail them in countries where their treatment is unconstrained by US laws. NBC News said Macedonian authorities first detained Masri in late December 2003, because his name matched that of someone who had trained in an Al Qaeda terrorist camp and he had a fake passport. The Macedonians contacted the CIA and Masri said he was kidnapped and flown by US officials to Afghanistan, where he was kept in harsh conditions until his release in late May 2004. The report said CIA officials in Kabul in February suspected Masri was the wrong man, and that in March the CIA determined that his passport was not fake and he was an innocent person. In April, sources told NBC, then CIA Director George Tenet was briefed about Masri’s situation and said he should be released from prison. However, it took another month and two direct orders, two weeks apart, from Rice before Masri was finally set free in late May. afp

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