Tag: ghost air (page 2)

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed the lawsuit by wrongly kidnapped and detained (and allegedly tortured) Khaled El-Masri. The opinion is here.

The ACLU may appeal to the Supreme Court. In a statement today, the ACLU says:

Although El-Masri’s case has been discussed and investigated throughout the world, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that it could not be either discussed or reviewed in an American court because of the government’s invocation of the “state secrets” privilege.

“Regrettably, today’s decision allows CIA officials to disregard the law with impunity by making it virtually impossible to challenge their actions in court,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “With today’s ruling, the state secrets doctrine has become a shield that covers even the most blatant abuses of power.”

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A judge in Italy has ordered 26 people, most of them CIA agents, to stand trial on kidnapping charges. In 2003, Egyptian cleric Osama Mustafa Hassan was kidnapped in Italy and flown to an Egyptian prison where he alleges he was tortured.

Now the question is, will Italy seek extradition of the CIA agents from the U.S.

Lawyers say they have compiled thousands of pages of documents and testimony from Italian agents past and present, some of whom have acknowledged working with the US in planning the abduction. The trial is due to begin on 8 June.

Here's more on Ghost Air.

Via Scribe in the diaries:

Today, a prosecutor in Munich disclosed the existence of arrest warrants for 13 members of Ghost Air crews, relative to the kidnapping of Khaled al Masri from Macedonia to a US prison in Afghanistan. He was left to molder there for months while Condi and others debated exactly what to do with him, seeing as he really was the wrong guy. Ultimately, they had him flown back to and dumped off pretty close to the same spot he'd been kidnapped from. The US District Court has dismissed his tort suit, on the "state secrets" doctrine; he's appealing to the Fourth Circuit.

TalkLeft background on al Masri is here.

Two Army Generals said in depositions and interviews Thursday that the number of prisoners held in Iraq who were hidden from the Red Cross far exceeded a few dozen and may have numbered up to 100.

Army jailers in Iraq, acting at the Central Intelligence Agency's request, kept dozens of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities off official rosters to hide them from Red Cross inspectors, two senior Army generals said Thursday. The total is far more than had been previously reported.