Justice for Khalid El-Masri

This documentary [from Witness, Al-Jazeera] tells the horrific story of Khalid El-Masri, the lebanese born German citizen who was taken off the street when holidaying in Macedonia as American forces believed he was an Al Qaeda agent because his name was similar to that of an Al Qaeda suspect. He was denied any contact with his family or German authorities, locked up in appalling conditions [in a covert CIA interrogation centre in Afganistan called 'The Salt Pit'], humiliated, sodomized and tortured for 5 months. El-Masri and several other inmates went on a hunger strike which lasted for almost a month and he demanded that they either release him immediately, allow him to contact the German authorities, or have him die of starvation.
Leaked diplomatic cables from Wikileaks reveal that the US administration was angered when the German authorities put out arrest warrants for some of those implicit in the deplorable affair and put significant pressure on the German government to weigh carefully the ramifications to their bi-lateral relationship if they were to pursue the charges.
He was then dumped in the woods in a remote region of Albania in the middle of the night, and walked off believing that he was going to be shot in the back.
In May 2006 U.S. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis, III in Washington dismissed a lawsuit El-Masri filed against the CIA and three private companies allegedly involved with his transport, explaining that a public trial would "present a grave risk of injury to national security."
He is still in the process of appeal and fighting for justice, and it is imperative that all involved in the US administration be held accountable and that this kind of perversion of justice be stopped.


For more info read this aptly titled article from the New York Times, 'Supreme Disgrace'.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/opinion/11thu1.html?_r=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_salt_pit

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/1/leaked_cable_us_warned_germany.html\