The Chancellor of Germany has told the world what the the Bush Administration has tried to keep secret: The U.S. admitted making a mistake in kidnapping Khaled al-Masri (also spelled el-Masri) and detaining him for five months. The U.S. made the admission to Germany's then interior minister, Otto Schily.

The Germans became aware of his case in May 2004, when the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to the interior minister, Otto Schily. Ambassador Daniel Coats told Schily the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, al-Masri, for five months and would soon release him, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation.

There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if al-Masri went public. The U.S. officials feared legal challenges and exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries.

TalkLeft noted here that it was Condi Rice who ordered the release of al-Masri. As the New York Times said at the time,

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against former CIA Director George Tenet alleging that Khaled El-Masri was illegally kidnapped, detained and tortured.

The American Civil Liberties Union today announced the first ever lawsuit against former CIA director George Tenet challenging the CIA’s abduction of a foreign national for detention and interrogation in a secret overseas prison. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Khaled El-Masri, an innocent German citizen victimized by the CIA’s policy of “extraordinary rendition.”

“Kidnapping a foreign national for the purpose of detaining and interrogating him outside the law is contrary to American values,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “Our government has acted as if it is above the law. We go to court today to reaffirm that the rule of law is central to our identity as a nation.”

Condi Rice is the new Emporer with no clothes, trying to sell Europe a bill of goods, pretending the CIA's secret prisons and renditions are legally legitimate and factually justified. Her first big test comes Tuesday in Germany. Human rights lawyers spoke up today, exposing the falsity of her claims.

Human rights lawyers said some of the cases which have come to light amounted to "disappearing people," a practice recognized as illegal for decades since its widespread use by Latin American governments in the 1970s. "If we're actually taking people, abducting them and then placing them in incommunicado detention, which appears to be the case, we would be actually guilty then of a disappearance under international law, in addition to a rendition," said Meg Satterthwaite of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law.

Condi Rice leaves for a trip today to four European countries. The New York Times reports she is prepared to defend America's use of secret renditions. I don't think she will get off that easy. Other countries are rightfully losing patience with our President's unilateral policy of kidnapping people, whisking them off to secret detention centers outside the U.S., and subjecting them to harsh interrogation techniques that may amount to torture.

The European Union, often more antagonistic to the United States than its individual member states, has vowed to press the issue during Rice’s visit. [German Justice Commissioner Franco]Frattini said the 25-nation alliance has “an institutional and moral duty to promote and defend fundamental rights of people.”
Even America’s closest allies are demanding answers. At least eight European nations have launched inquiries into allegations that the US may be operating a “ghost gulag” with scores of detainees shunted from one detention facility to another, mainly in the Middle East and Central Asia, via transit points in Europe.

This Japanese editorial sums up the flak Condi will face very well.

Another first from the ACLU. It will sue the Government for flying detainees on Ghost Air. From the press release:

[The ACLU will bring]the first ever lawsuit to challenge the CIA's practice of abducting foreign nationals for detention and interrogation in secret overseas prisons. The plaintiff, an entirely innocent victim of "extraordinary rendition" at the hands of the CIA and who was released without ever being charged, will be present at the press conference.

The lawsuit will charge that CIA officials at the highest level violated U.S. and universal human rights laws when they authorized agents to abduct an innocent man, detain him incommunicado, beat him, drug him and transport him to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan. The lawsuit charges that the unlawful abduction and treatment was the direct result of an illegal CIA policy known as "extraordinary rendition." The CIA continued to hold the victim in the notorious "Salt Pit" prison in Afghanistan long after his innocence was known.

In a suprise move, the 4th Circuit has delayed the transfer of Jose Padilla from military custody to civilian custody.

... the three-judge panel said it needs to know whether it should set aside a September opinion that upheld Padilla's military detention before returning him to civilian authorities.

The court said it wants to hear arguments on whether the opinion was to be vacated "as a consequence of the transfer." The judges pointed out that the facts alleged by the government "warranting" Padilla's military detention differed from the charges in the indictment.

Padilla's lawyers are not pleased.

by TChris

The European Union, peeved to learn that some European countries (wittingly or otherwise) may be hosting secret prisons that warehouse detainees who have been captured or kidnapped by the Bush administration, has asked the president to reveal information about those prisons. The State Department has promised to respond to the best of its ability, a sure sign that it won’t provide meaningful answers.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack would not answer questions about whether the sites exist or whether the CIA used European airports and airspace to transport suspects. He also would not say whether the U.S. response to the Europeans will definitively answer those questions, nor whether the U.S. response will be made public.

The questions may be posed directly to Condoleezza Rice as she jets aroud Europe next week, “including a stop in Romania, which is one of the nations identified by Human Rights Watch as a likely site of a secret detention camp.”

TChris has an excellent post on Attorney General Gonzales' comment on Jose Padilla.

How does Attorney General Gonzalez explain the administration's change of heart? He claims the administration's decision to hold Padilla for more than three years, first as a material witness and then as an uncharged "enemy combatant," as well as the administration's previous accusations of wrongdoing, are "legally irrelevant to the charges we're bringing today."

Lawyer Glenn Greenwald powerfully explains how the Padilla decision represents the true tyranny of the executive branch. He also ties the power grab into the upcoming Alito hearings.

The decision yesterday by the Administration to finally bring charges against U.S. citizen Jose Padilla -- who has been kept incarcerated in a military prison for three years solely on George Bush's order, in solitary confinement and indefinitely -- was done not in order to signal a retreat by the Administration with regard to its claimed right to imprison U.S. citizens without any judicial processes, but instead, to protect and solidify that power by ensuring that its patent unconstitutionality cannot be ruled upon by the U.S. Supreme Court in the pending Padilla case.

A Guantanamo detainee is suing to be allowed to have a copy of the bible. The prison only allows inmates to have the Koran.

Saifullah Paracha has been held at Guanatanamo the past three years. He is a 58 year old Pakistani businessman. At his request, his lawyer sent him a bible, which is an accepted holy text in Islamic teachings, and two Shakespeare plays, Hamlet and Julius Casear. The prison blocked delivery of the books.

After review, prison officials relented on Shakespeare but not the bible.

Government lawyers said Paracha had not shown that the practice of his religion had been "substantially burdened" because he did not have a copy of the Bible.

The Government has indicted Jose Padilla. He's charged with conspiracy to kill and maim people overseas. The indictment does not allege Padilla was planning attacks in the U.S.

• President's Memo - November 20, 2005
• Notice of Release and Transfer - November 22, 2005
• Indictment - November 17, 2005

ABC News has a must-read new report on torture techniques being used on detainees at overseas detention centers. The information comes from current and former CIA officers and supervisors who believe the public should know "the direction" the Agency has taken.

Portions of their accounts are corrobrated by public statements of former CIA officers and by reports recently published that cite a classified CIA Inspector General's report.

Among the tecniques used:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

Spain announced today it will probe allegations that the CIA used an airport near Mallorca to transfer Ghost Air detainees destined for overseas interrogation facilities.

The Spanish government had no knowledge of the alleged flights but a judge was investigating them, [Spanish Interior Minister Jose Antonio] Alonso told Spanish television channel Telecinco.

"If it were confirmed that this is true, we would be looking at very serious, intolerable deeds because they break the basic rules of treating people in a democratic legal and political system," he said.