Rendition victim blames CIA for crimes

MEMMINGEN, Germany, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- A man who claims the CIA kidnapped and tortured him has admitted to charges of arson, serious bodily injury and slander in Germany.

At the start of his trial in the southern German city of Memmingen, Khaled el-Masri admitted to having raced his car into a store and setting fire to it after an argument with sales staff; some months earlier, he beat his truck-driving instructor into the hospital.

Masri's lawyer Manfred Gnjidic argued his client was still suffering from the aftereffects of his extraordinary rendition, and accused the German government of not having given Masri the necessary psychiatric help he needed.

The 44-year-old German-Lebanese man said he was constantly afraid for his life and that he believed the store officials had tried to entrap him.

"I think there exists great interest in having me eliminated," Masri said in a statement to court.

Gnjidic said his client has diminished criminal responsibility for his actions because of the psychological problem linked to his ordeal as a terror suspect.

Masri claims that on Dec. 31, 2003, he was hauled off a bus while in the Macedonian capital of Skopje. Twenty-three days later, the CIA transferred him to Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was held for five months in a secret prison and repeatedly abused, he said. The CIA released him when they found Masri was not the terrorist suspect they were looking for; he simply had a similar name.

Washington has neither confirmed nor denied the accusations, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel after a bilateral meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington admitted Masri's detention was a "mistake."

The Masri affair at the time caused a rift in German-U.S. relations, with Merkel under pressure to press Washington on the man's behalf.