Madrid, Spain – A German citizen testified Monday in a Spanish court that he was kidnapped and tortured by U.S. intelligence agents in 2003, then flown by the CIA to Afghanistan, where he was imprisoned and abused for five months.
Khaled al-Masri, 43, broke down in tears several times during his testimony before National Court Judge Ismael Moreno, who is investigating reports that the CIA used a Spanish airport to secretly transfer suspected terrorists to countries where they were tortured.
Earlier this year, the Kuwaiti- born al-Masri testified before German lawmakers and a European Parliament panel, but his lawyer, Ignasi Ribas, said, “This time he has said it before a judge, and that is important.”
Al-Masri, a former car salesman and a father of five, said he was abducted Dec. 31, 2003, at the Serbia-Macedonia border while on vacation. He said he was taken to a hotel in the Macedonian capital of Skopje where he was imprisoned and tortured for 23 days before being flown to Kabul, Afghanistan.
Al-Masri’s lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, said documents show that the plane, a Boeing 737, that took al-Masri from Macedonia to Afghanistan in January 2004 originally came from Algeria via Ma llorca, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean.
Al-Masri said his captors – whom he identified as North Americans and one German – accused him at one stage of having been at an al-Qaeda training camp in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and said he was wanted by German and Egyptian police.
Once he arrived in Afghanistan, he said, he was put in a prison for five months and tortured. He said he was released in Albania in May 2004 after the CIA discovered it had the wrong person.
Al-Masri declined to take questions from reporters when the closed session ended.
“By telling his story in detail, he’s been living again the same torture he suffered years ago,” Gnjidic said.
The lawyer added that there are investigations underway to find out where exactly al-Masri was held in Kabul and to identify his captors.
