Germany issues warrants for 13 CIA operatives

BERLIN -- German prosecutors yesterday said arrest warrants have been issued for 13 CIA operatives accused of the abduction of Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese heritage who was kidnapped in the Balkans in early 2004, flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, and grilled for months before his captors decided he had no terrorist ties and released him.

Masri's ordeal, which investigators from the German intelligence service and Council of Europe have confirmed in its broad details, is among the more chilling examples of "extraordinary rendition" -- the CIA's highly controversial practice of kidnapping individuals suspected of terrorism in one country and whisking them to third countries where rules against illegal imprisonment and torture are nonexistent.

The German indictments are a sign of deepening strains between Europe and the United States over how to battle terrorism. Italy has issued arrest warrants for 25 CIA operatives and a US military officer allegedly involved in snatching an Islamic radical cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003 and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured during interrogation.

A court in Milan is considering this week whether to try the CIA agents in absentia.

Last year Italy removed its top two intelligence officials amid suspicions of collaboration with the CIA. Spymaster Nicolo Pollari was dismissed in November, months after his own deputy was arrested.

In Germany, prosecutors declined to release the identities of the CIA operatives sought in Masri's abduction.

Prosecutor Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld, lead investigator in a politically sensitive case that has drawn worldwide attention, said in an interview last night that all "personal details" contained in the arrest warrants are thought to be "cover identities and aliases of CIA agents."

The US Embassy in Berlin declined to comment.

Representative Edward J. Markey, a Malden Democrat who has been a longtime critic of the practice of rendition, said in a statement yesterday on the indictments: "This administration's rogue kidnapping efforts are now being questioned by some of our closest allies in the war on terror. This practice of rendition will only impede our fight against terrorism and alienate our allies."

The alleged CIA agents and contract employees face criminal charges of abduction, wrongful imprisonment, and the infliction of "bodily harm" on Masri, according to Schmidt-Sommerfeld.

If they set foot anywhere in Europe, they face immediate arrest, the Munich-based prosecutor warned.

However, the German government, led by pro-American Chancellor Angela Merkel, is considered unlikely to want a major confrontation with the United States over the issue.

In some respects, the case is nearly as much of an embarrassment for the German government as for the United States. Shortly after releasing Masri in 2004, Washington quietly tipped Berlin that it had mistakenly incarcerated a German citizen in Afghanistan, but the government took no action. German press reports have suggested the country's intelligence agency may have some complicity in the kidnapping.

Schmidt-Sommerfeld told reporters that the prosecutor's office in Munich acted largely on information funneled to German authorities by Spain.

According to government sources, Spanish authorities collected information -- such as passport photos and details -- of the flight crew and other individuals aboard a Boeing 737 that departed the island of Palma de Mallorca in January 2004 for Skopje, Macedonia. Masri, a car salesman by trade, had been headed for vacation in Macedonia in late December when he was detained by Macedonian border guards, who may have been acting on instructions of the CIA, then questioned for several days before being handed over to CIA operatives in Skopje. He alleges he was stripped and drugged before being flown to Afghanistan in handcuffs and blindfolded.

In May 2004, Masri was flown back to the Balkans, blindfolded, and taken to a remote hillside in Albania, where he was abandoned.

His tale was initially dismissed as ludicrous, but German investigators have since confirmed the essential elements of his account in background briefings with reporters and under questioning in parliament.

Masri's lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, told reporters that the arrest warrants are the first solid sign that Germany intends to go after the abductors. They demonstrate, he told Spiegel magazine's online service, that the CIA cannot "operate in a lawless space and that Germany will not tolerate the measures of their agents and their bosses. These are massive crimes that have been committed."

The Masri case in Germany and the case of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, the radical cleric better known as Abu Omar who was abducted in Milan, have drawn condemnation across Europe.

"The US cannot go around kidnapping people and transferring them to countries where they may be tortured, and not expect there to be consequences," said Andrew Tyrie, head of a Britain's parliamentary inquiry Group on Extraordinary Rendition. "The arrest warrants issued by Italy and Germany are just the beginning. I expect to see many more."

Four of the individuals being sought by German prosecutors are believed to be contract pilots for the CIA. Others include medical personnel and "operatives," according to German media reports. Most of them are believed to be in the United States.

"Some were flight crew, and others were part of the so-called 'rendition team,' " state prosecutor August Stern told reporters. "That is, the kidnapping team."

German state television NDR reported last night that US officials have flatly refused to assist the German probe into the Masri affair, despite the normal close cooperation between the intelligence agencies in both countries.