European court of human rights hears case of Khaled el-Masri, detained in Skopje before alleged torture in Afghanistan by CIA
Europe's human rights court began hearing the first case arising from the US's post-9/11 rendition programme on Wednesday, when the government of Macedonia went on trial accused of multiple human rights abuses of a German citizen.
Khaled el-Masri, 48, a car salesman of Lebanese descent, was detained in Macedonia in December 2003 and held for more than three weeks in Skopje, before being handed to CIA officers who flew him to Afghanistan, where he was allegedly tortured for the next five months.
The CIA appears to have realised it had made a mistake: it had been looking for another man of the same name. El-Masri was then flown from Afghanistan to Albania and abandoned by the side of a road in a mountainous area, with no means of returning home.
The grand chamber of the European court of human rights in Strasbourg began hearing a case brought by el-Masri's lawyers which alleges a breach of his European Convention rights to liberty and freedom from torture.
Several other European states are expected to face proceedings before the European court as more details emerge of complicity in acts committed during the US's post-9/11 counter-terrorism operations.
The Macedonian government has insisted that while its police did detain el-Masri, he was later permitted to leave the country for Kosovo. That claim is expected to be contradicted at court by a statement from a former Macedonian government minister.
Moreover, the allegations that el-Masri makes have largely been confirmed by both the German government and, privately, the US government. In December 2005, while standing alongside then US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, German chancellor Angela Merkel told a press conference that "the American administration is not denying" it was responsible for el-Masri's abduction, and accepted that it had detained the wrong man. "I'm happy to say we have discussed the one case, which the government of the United States has of course accepted as a mistake," Merkel said. "I'm very happy that the foreign minister has repeated here that when such mistakes happen, they must be corrected immediately. Everything else must happen in accordance with the law." Rice declined to comment on the case, and aides later said that she had said only that any mistakes would be corrected.
Inquiries by the Council of Europe and the German Bundestag have also largely corroborated el-Masri's account. In December 2010, US diplomatic cables posted on the internet by WikiLeaks showed that American diplomats persuaded Germany not to seek the extradition of several US officials allegedly involved in el-Masri's rendition, following an investigation by the Bavarian state prosecutor's office.
James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative – the NGO that is presenting el-Masri's case, said: "It is time for both the US and Macedonia to acknowledge the facts of this appalling case and to provide appropriate redress."
El-Masri, from Ulm, Bavaria, has never received an apology, acknowledgment of compensation from the CIA or the US government. He brought civil proceedings in the US against the former head of the CIA, George Tenet. After that case was thrown out when the US government claimed state secrets privilege, he also brought proceedings through the Inter-American commission on human rights.
Proceedings are being brought against Lithuania and Poland in the European court of human rights, and human rights lawyers believe recent revelations about the UK's role in the rendition of Libyan dissidents and their families of Tripoli in 2004 will result in the British government being brought before the court. Those operations are also the subject of a Scotland Yard criminal investigation, while Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time, is being sued by the victims in the UK courts.