Victim of CIA rendition flights, blamed for igniting a market and imprisoned in psychiatric hospital

[CGowen]

problem solved for the neocons in Germany

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,483426,00.html

Khaled el-Masri is back in custody. This time, it's not a dark hole in Afghanistan after being picked up by American agents on suspicion of being a terrorist. Rather, it is a psychiatric clinic in the German town of Neu-Ulm where he has been arrested on suspicion of being an arsonist.

The 43-year-old Lebanese-German -- who claims to have been kidnapped by American agents at the end of 2003 and flown to a prison in Afghanistan for torture as part of the extraordinary renditions program -- is suspected of having ignited a blaze early Thursday morning that ultimately did €500,000 ($678,000) in damages. According to police, the door of a wholesale market in Neu-Ulm was broken and a fire was set just inside. El-Masri was picked up not far away.

A judge ordered el-Masri be sent to a psychiatric hospital, according to police inspector Holger Rennebeck in a Thursday statement. There was no reason given for the judge's decision and el-Masri's lawyer could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

.....

.......
Masri's lawyers say he was an innocent victim of the CIA practice of the "extraordinary rendition" of terrorism suspects that has caused intense controversy in several European countries.

He had filed a suit in the United States against his detention but it was rejected by an appeals court on the grounds that events linked to the case were a state secret.

Court says spying was unlawful

This week, Germany's highest court ruled that el-Masri's phone was tapped unlawfully by German authorities.

In Jan, 2006, a Munich district court secretly approved a request by investigators that telephones, faxes and mobile phone calls to and from el-Masri and his lawyer should be monitored in an effort to uncover the identity of his kidnappers. The Munich court justified its approval on the grounds that a phone tap would help authorities gather information on the identities of the 13 people suspected of kidnapping him.

"The likelihood that the complainant would be contacted by those responsible was so minimal from the start that the chances that the measures would be successful were disproportionate to the severity of the tapping," the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe said.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2541838,00.html

[vickitulsa]

1. German authorities: "We only did it to HELP him!"

"Of course, since he was already stark raving insane due to being waterboarded and having his genitals shocked with electricity by CIA confederates in Afghanistan, we learned nothing at all from our taps on his communications.

"Too bad, so sad; we'll just lock him up forever in an asylum now so no one except other insane people will be disturbed by him anymore."


As you said in the OP, "Problem solved."



Bad Karma, Bad Karma, they build it each day
They're sadly mistaken if they think it goes away.

Bad Medicine, Bad Medicine, it lingers for years
And it can't be washed out by our millions of tears.

The scales are off balance, and Justice has fled
She lifted her blindfold and they say her eyes bled.

If a tally is kept and the bad deeds writ down
It's a sure bet that what goes around comes around.

Bad Karma, Bad Karma, when Justice returns
She'll issue her judgments, and the guilty will burn.

When the scales are re-balanced
The guilty will burn....

[undergroundpanther]

2. There is no karma

Until those who want justice are outraged and compaassionate enough twords the wounded to MAKE the Karma happen,you know.
When will America quit letting the rich military corporate perpretrators off the hook and DO something to MAKE justice happen??

[vickitulsa]

3. I completely agree with you.

And I wish I could get an answer to your question too.

I'm doing my part ... working to make everyone I talk with as aware and alert -- and as angry and outraged -- as I am!

Usually I feel that I get through to them at least to some degree, and I'm sometimes surprised at how pissed off a lot of folks already are. But then I wonder when I walk away if the anger I sensed in them fades back into the white noise of their lives.

Sometimes I don't know if I'm more irate or discouraged, even embittered by the slow progress of justice. But often it's when I'm most disheartened that some little old lady (not unlike me) or a teenager who might seem disconnected from it all will let me know the depth of their rage, and I see the Karma Train a'comin' down the tracks, gathering speed....

Still can't get here soon enough for me!