A man who claims the CIA kidnapped and tortured him in a case of mistaken identity fell into criminality after returning to Germany because of his treatment by the U.S., his attorney said as his arson trial opened Monday. Khaled el-Masri, a 44-year-old German of Lebanese descent, faces charges of arson, serious bodily injury and slander for two incidents this year. In one, officials say, he attempted to set fire to a store after an argument with sales staff escalated.| The admission should be good for six .. months in an EU |
El-Masri is best known for his assertion that he was mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers and was kidnapped while attempting to enter Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003. He claims he was flown to a CIA-run prison known as the "salt pit" in Afghanistan, where he was beaten and sexually abused with an object during five months in captivity before being released in Albania in May 2004. El-Masri's claims, which prompted strong international criticism of the rendition program, were backed by European investigations and U.S. news reports. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that U.S. officials acknowledged that el-Masri's detention was a mistake.
The U.S. government has neither confirmed nor denied el-Masri's account and, in urging the court not to hear the case, said that the facts central to el-Masri's claims "concern the highly classified methods and means of the program."
Gnjidic told the court that el-Masri admitted getting into a heated argument with two saleswomen over the return of an MP3 player he had purchased, and spitting at one of them. The slander accusation comes from that incident. He then returned to the store with four gas canisters and set a fire outside a side entrance that caused $147,000 in water and smoke damage. The attorney said el-Masri also admitted punching an official at a driver's testing center who told him that he had missed too many hours in his training as a truck driver. The man was treated in the hospital for head injuries.