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Lawsuit claims CIA kidnapped, tortured German man
 Khaled Masri sits in Stuttgart, Germany, and reads newspaper stories about his alleged abduction. RELATEDYOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(CNN) -- A suit was filed Tuesday in the United States on behalf of a German man who alleges he was kidnapped and tortured by U.S. agents for five months in 2004. The suit charges the man was mistakenly suspected of being an associate of the 9/11 hijackers. Khaled Masri, a 42-year-old man of Lebanese decent, claims that he was taken on New Year's Eve 2003 by CIA operatives from his vacation in Macedonia to a prison in Afghanistan. While he was detained he was beaten and subjected to inhuman conditions, according to the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. "For me the issue is I want to know why they did this to me and how it ever came about," Masri said in German via video conference from Stuttgart, Germany. His lawyers said he was denied entry to the United States on Saturday at the international airport in Atlanta, Georgia. "And I want an official excuse," he said, according to a translator. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the department was reviewing Masri's complaint. ACLU lawyer Steven Watt said in a statement that, "The CIA's policy of extraordinary rendition is a clear violation of universal human rights protections. Snatching Mr. El-Masri off the street and hiding him away in a secret prison was illegal under American and international law." Extraordinary rendition is the process of moving a suspected terrorist from one country to another for interrogation. CNN's David Ensor reports that more than 100 foreign nationals have been transferred in this manner. (Watch how renditions can work and why they are controversial -- 2:31) Critics have said many of the interrogation techniques are kept secret and sometimes involve torture. President Bush said Tuesday that the United States hasn't sent prisoners to other countries to be tortured. "First of all, I don't talk about secret programs, covert programs, covert activities," he said. "Part of a successful war on terror is for the United States of America to be able to conduct operations, all aimed at protecting the American people, covertly. "However, I can tell you two things: one, that we abide by the law of the United States and we do not torture; and, two, we will try to do everything we can to protect this within the law. ... We do not render to countries that torture. That has been our policy. And that policy will remain the same." Skeptical critics say the governments taking part usually don't publicly acknowledge their role in the detentions but are mostly U.S. allies in the fight against terrorism. The ACLU said the list of countries includes Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Some intelligence agents have said rendition has been a valuable tool for gathering information, but one former CIA officer told CNN that when a country hands over a suspect, it loses control over the informant and intelligence attained is limited. The ACLU said in a news release on its Web site Masri was never able to speak to a lawyer and subjected to squalid conditions while in custody. He was finally "abandoned on a hill in Albania," the statement said. A Mistake?An article in Sunday's Washington Post quoted an anonymous former CIA official who said Masri had been detained on a hunch, because the head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center's al Qaeda unit "believed he was someone else." According to The Associated Press, Masri seeks damages of up to $75,000. The lawsuit is El-Masri v. Tenet and alleges that former CIA Director George Tenet knew that Masri -- who moved to Germany in 1985, according to The Associated Press -- was an innocent man, but did not permit his release. In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said the United States had acknowledged the arrest of Masri was a "mistake." (Full story) Rice declined comment. Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report. 
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