Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 4, 2005; Page A01
In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister. Ambassador Daniel R. Coats carried instructions from the State Department transmitted via the CIA's Berlin station because they were too sensitive and highly classified for regular diplomatic channels, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation.
Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went public. The U.S. officials feared exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Masri and others with similar allegations.
The Masri case, with new details gleaned from interviews with current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials, offers a rare study of how pressure on the CIA to apprehend al Qaeda members after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has led in some instances to detention based on thin or speculative evidence. The case also shows how complicated it can be to correct errors in a system built and operated in secret.
The CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people, including several key leaders of al Qaeda, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made.
Unlike the military's prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- where 180 prisoners have been freed after a review of their cases -- there is no tribunal or judge to check the evidence against those picked up by the CIA. The same bureaucracy that decides to capture and transfer a suspect for interrogation-- a process called "rendition" -- is also responsible for policing itself for errors.
The CIA inspector general is investigating a growing number of what it calls "erroneous renditions," according to several former and current intelligence officials.
One official said about three dozen names fall in that category; others believe it is fewer. The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said.
"They picked up the wrong people, who had no information. In many, many cases there was only some vague association" with terrorism, one CIA officer said.
While the CIA admitted to Germany's then-Interior Minister Otto Schily that it had made a mistake, it has labored to keep the specifics of Masri's case from becoming public. As a German prosecutor works to verify or debunk Masri's claims of kidnapping and torture, the part of the German government that was informed of his ordeal has remained publicly silent. Masri's attorneys say they intend to file a lawsuit in U.S. courts this week.
Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center's al Qaeda unit "believed he was someone else," one former CIA official said. "She didn't really know. She just had a hunch."
The CIA declined to comment for this article, as did Coats and a spokesman at the German Embassy in Washington. Schily did not respond to several requests for comment last week.
CIA officials stress that apprehensions and renditions are among the most sure-fire ways to take potential terrorists out of circulation quickly. In 2000, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet said that "renditions have shattered terrorist cells and networks, thwarted terrorist plans, and in some cases even prevented attacks from occurring."
El alemán Khaled al-Masri demandó a George Tenet, antiguo director de la CIA y a otros oficiales por supuesta tortura mientras fue mantenido prisionero durante cinco meses en Afganistán en 2004. Masri fue arrestado en Macedonia en relación con los ataques del 11 de septiembre y enviado a Afganistán para ser interrogado.

Masri afirma que su celda en Afghanistan era fría y sucia, estaba ubicada en un granero, sin luz y que sólo disponía de una cobija sucia para calentarse. La primera noche él afirma haber recibido golpes y patadas de parte de su interrogador, quien le dijo: ''"Estás en un país en donde nadie conoce tu paradero, en un país sin ley. Si mueres, te enterramos y nadie se enterará".''

En Estados Unidos, Masri es representado por la Unión estadounidense de derechos civiles (ACLU) en su querella iniciada el martes en Alexandria, estado de Virginia, en la que solicita hasta US$75.000 por daños. El acusado principal será George Tenet, quien anteriormente trabajó para la CIA a nivel de dirección.

La Secretaria de Estado estadounidense Condoleezza Rice estuvo de visita en Alemania pero no habló con los periodistas sobre este caso. Por su parte, la nueva Canciller de Alemania Angela Merkel afirmó: "''Estoy contenta al afirmar que se discutió el caso particular, y que el gobierno de los Estados Unidos por supuesto aceptó que había sido un error...''".

Posteriormente un miembro del personal que acompañó a Condoleezza Rice hacia Rumania afirmó que ella no había admitido errores en el tratamiento de Masri. Al referirse a Merkel dijo: ''"No sabemos exactamente a que se refería"''.