Spanish prosecutors want 13 CIA agents
arrested
Spanish prosecutors are asking a judge
to issue arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents who they believe were involved in the
spy agency’s 2004 “extraordinary rendition” of a German citizen, according to
Spain's El Pais newspaper.
Prosecutors claim jurisdiction in the
case because CIA personnel who handled the rendition of Khaled El-Masri had a
stopover in Majorca en route to Macedonia. El-Masri has said he was taken to
Afghanistan, where he was tortured for several months and then released when the
CIA realized it had been a case of mistaken identity.
The Madrid-based El Pais listed the
names of the alleged CIA employees, saying prosecutors suspected them of
involvement in the abduction of El-Masri from Macedonia, where he was
vacationing, to a secret CIA prison known as the “Salt Pit.”
“El-Masri was placed on a CIA-chartered
jet that arrived in Macedonia from Palma de Majorca in January 2004, en route
ultimately to Afghanistan,” wrote Harpers online blogger and international law
specialist Scott Horton, who reported earlier on the Spanish developments
Wednesday. “It appears that Majorca was used regularly as a refueling and
temporary sheltering point for the CIA, with the knowledge of the prior
conservative government.”
But much remains uncertain about the
case, including the accuracy of the names on the prosecutors’ list, which they
said were provided by the Guardia Civil, or national police.
El Pais indicated that police obtained
guest records from a luxury hotel in Majorca that showed CIA personnel stayed
there under false names on the night before they flew to Skopje to pick up Masri.
Prosecutors believe that the
London-based human rights organization “Reprieve” has the real names of the CIA
operatives, according to El Pais, and have asked the National Court to subpoena
the authors of the list “for the purposes of ratifying the report about the
identification of the true identity of the crew."
The CIA refuses to confirm or deny the
accuracy of the names, as it did in a similar case in Milan. Last year nearly
two dozen CIA operatives were convicted in absentia in Milan on charges of
kidnapping a suspected al Qaeda operative known as Abu Omar, in 2003.
The Spanish prosecutors are also not
certain whether Majorca was used in the Masri extradition, El Pais reported.
“The prosecutor's office also indicates
in its filing that it has not been established that the US authorities ‘used the
bases [in Spain] to transport detainees in the course of Operation Enduring
Freedom,’ the military unit organized by Washington to fight against terrorism
in Afghanistan,” the paper said.
It’s not the first time the names on
the Spanish list have surfaced. A few years ago German prosecutors requested
that the federal government in Berlin ask Washington to extradite CIA personnel
allegedly involved in the Masri case.
“In a compromise,” The Washington
Post’s Craig Whitlock reported in September 2007, “German officials sent an
informal inquiry to Washington last month. When U.S. officials responded that
they would not cooperate, German authorities agreed to drop the matter.”
Whitlock added, “Some German security
officials had opposed the extradition request, arguing that it could undermine
U.S.-German cooperation against terrorism.”
In Italy, likewise, the Italian
Ministry of Justice refused to honor the Milan prosecutor's request to ask
Washington for the extradition of agents.
The same outcome could await Spanish
prosecutors, regardless of whether the National Court honors their request.