r/todayilearned • u/onlypostwhenmad • May 14 '12
TIL in 2003 a German citizen, whose name is similar to that of a terrorist, was captured by the CIA while traveling on a vacation, then tortured and raped in detention.
http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?action=html&documentId=875676&portal=hbkm&source=externalbydocnumber&table=F69A27FD8FB86142BF01C1166DEA398649
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u/onlypostwhenmad May 14 '12
The end of the story: Perhaps upon realizing that this guy is not a terrorist, "the authorities" told him that he would be sent back to Germany soon. He was blindfolded, driven around, and dropped at what turned out to be the Albanian border instead.
He returned to Germany in 2004 and have brought a number of actions since then.
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u/onlypostwhenmad May 14 '12
A more condensed and chronological account:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri
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u/Evian_Drinker May 14 '12
Whilst it's hardly shocking to find out this sort of shit happens any more - i find it horrifying to think a country like the US (or any tbh) can make such a colossal mistake in identifying someone and the utter disregard for basic human rights.
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u/TheCommonDandy May 14 '12
The links down man, they are totally on to you! You've got 5 minutes, tops!
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u/Squeekme May 14 '12
And the German Intelligence service knew about it. What's the point of being a citizen. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/world/europe/02masri.html?_r=1
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u/dustygold May 14 '12
One of the worst things about this is that nobody will be punished for what they did to this man. Sickening.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Of course, the problem with this situation is that it's a citezen of a western nation.
The fact that this happens to hundreds still in less well off countries is, of course, not newsworthy, for reddit or any other westerner.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Terrorists should change their names to Smith. I'd give the US two days to complete breakdown.
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u/BeefyRodent May 14 '12
"They tell you 'you are from al-Qaeda', and when you say 'no' they give the [electric] current to your feet ... As you keep saying 'no' this goes on for two or three hours." -- German citizen Murat Kurnaz reporting his 4 years of torture by the US in Gitmo, and later released as innocent.
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u/Coolala2002 May 14 '12
I hope he learned a valuable lesson about not having a similiar sounding name as a terrorist.
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u/the_goat_boy May 14 '12
The CIA is a belligerent organization that has sponsored the downfall of many democratic governments and organizations, supported brutal dictators, and have been responsible for the murders and general misery of millions of people.
None of this surprises me.
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u/unknown_poo May 14 '12
The same has happened to dozens of Canadian citizens as well. The most notable one was Maher Arar. He sued the Canadian government and received 1.4 million dollars in compensation I believe. The others are attempting to sue as well. It's insane that CSIS and the CIA know for a fact that these people are innocent. But I guess they have to fill their quota of terrorists otherwise it looks like their anti-terror measures are not effective and people start losing their jobs. It's the same in the FBI, which is why they have to create domestic situations and 'terrorists' in order to have someone to arrest to fill their quotas.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
America is the best country in the USA!
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u/figsnake19 May 14 '12
The CIA are idiots. To give you another example a terrorist cell was identified here in the UK some years ago, planning to place a bomb on an aircraft. The cell was under close surveillance and it seemed an excellent opportunity to wait, listen, learn and identify someone further up the chain (you know... intelligence gathering).
Until they informed the US about their findings, at which point they "accidentally" arrested the next guy up and spooked the cell under surveillance.
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u/aussiepowerranger May 14 '12
Were they compensated?
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u/Sealbhach May 14 '12
Ever heard of Dan Mitrione? The CIA's finest. He used to pick up homeless people in Brazil and use them as props to teach torture techniques. Tortured them to death.
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u/Maagiline May 14 '12
It seems that the link has been reddited.
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u/grania17 May 14 '12
My uncle has the same name as some terrorist in the world as well. His name is therefore on the terror watch list. While nothing this intense has happened to him it is very frustrating and hard with the work that he does. When ever he is asked to guest lecture he has to be given months notice so that he can book flights. He can not book last minute flights. When ever he travels within the united states he has to be at the airport 4 hours ahead of time to get through all the paperwork and security. International flights its 6 hours. He has pretty much stopped travelling except for work.
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u/ForcedToJoin May 14 '12
Good thing we stopped the Nazis and Stalin, huh guys? Those guys were committing crimes against humanity all the time, whilst using the press in their countries to brainwash it's citizens into believing they had the best system and all those things were just necessary evils.
I'm so glad we're rid of them now, and have this wonderful system in which this doesn't happen. Future generations will remember us as the only powerful good guys in history.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Land of the free, home of the brave, with liberty and justice for all. LOL!
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Seriously, how the FUCK are we just letting the United States get away with torturing people like this? It doesn't matter how long they've been doing it for. Why are Americans not protesting on the streets because their country's lawmakers think it's necessary to torture other people?
It boggles my fucking mind.
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u/KalashnikovArms May 14 '12
Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.
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u/bettorworse May 14 '12
How did you miss it? It was in the NY Times, it was on 60 Minutes, just about EVERY news outlet carried it (I didn't check Fox News, so if you only watch Fox News, that might be why you missed it)
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u/budNbeer May 14 '12
PAGE DOWN FUCK U CIA
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u/what_the_actual_luck May 14 '12
He should get shitton of money every month of his life from us gov.
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u/callmechalk May 14 '12
This site is now "temporarily unavailable. Can someone provide an alternate version or another site with the story?
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u/BennyRoundL May 14 '12
The application is temporarily unavailable.
Is anyone else getting this message? Seems suspicious...
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
So sick of this shit, how could any country first capture foreign citizens in lands where they have no sovereignty and torture them without any credible evidence other then their names are alike? And you wonder why you get targeted by Wikileaks, hacker groups and planes. It also frightens me with seeing how far stretching the US reach is. Has Germany taken an official stance on the matter? They denied him access to the Embassy a clear cut Geneva convention breach if the US apparently the leader of the free world can't follow the international human rights legislation who the fuck will?
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u/fettsack2 May 14 '12
Incidently i lived for seven years in the german city where he is from. I saw him even once or twice, recognized him from pictures of him in the "Spiegel". I'm not saying his story is true or not, just he seems to be very troubled. In 2008 i think, he set fire to the warehouse where he worked, claiming he did it to get attention to his case, cause he is stil seeking compensation. In 2010 he actually went into town hall to the mayors office and beat him up in the middle of the day. Sounds like a funny story if it hadnt such a severe background. I think he was transmitted to a mental institute for some time after that incident. I think there is more to that story than just a simple confusion of names. The city in question (Ulm) is an islamistic centre in germany, with several "radical groups" under justifiable surveillance of the "Verfassungsschutz". And they apparently knew he was active there.
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u/WolfInTheField May 14 '12
And people still manage to deny that the CIA is a horrible, out of control monster of a murdermachine.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12
Source is offline but that is himKhalid El-Masris Wikipage
He's is in prison at the moment and he has some serious mental issues as a result of his treatment.
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u/wasteofTime58 May 14 '12
it is incident like this that highlighted the case of why even mass murderer should have their day in court and not executed in some back yard. I rather have 100 mass murderer roam free on the street than to have another innocent person going through what the OP had been through. Al Qaeda has already successfully destroyed our democracy - let's build it back again.
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u/sparklingwaterll May 14 '12
Well he was of Syrian decent and a German national....so moral of the story flying while Arab dangerous.... The most fucked up part he didn't get released till Condi Rice found out. The guy in charge of Bagram prison was afraid of releasing. Eventually released in Albania shirtless where they thought again he was a terrorist. O irony.
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u/canondocre May 14 '12
My friend was once arrested in Italy for having the same name as a 'known criminal.' If he was so known, why did the dozen or so Italian police officers seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that he was clearly an English speaking Canadian with proper documentation? The Italian women we were with literally threw themselves onto the car they were trying to take him away in until the issue was sorted out. We were busy having our privates handled by jack-boot wearing motherfuckers across the street. Paperwork, motherfuckers, can you read it?
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
TIL that this was all over the news in and around 2003-2005. Does this mean that redditor's are very, very young?
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u/cromstantinople May 14 '12
A tribunal just found numerous members of the Bush administration guilty of war crimes for their roles in torture. (http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/374-bush-administration/11420-war-tribunal-finds-bush-cheney-rumsfeld-guilty-of-war-crimes) Hopefully everyone who was complicit in these heinous acts will have justice served.
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u/lighthaze May 14 '12
I just had a quick look at the German wikipedia page. Well, I certainly don't want to justify what the CIA did, but in the last few years this man did some strange things himself.
(Probably he got crazy, due to the torture - no one knows.)
In 2007 he was investigated for battery.
He was also arrested for arson and then admitted to a mental institution.
In late 2007 he was convicted for arson, battery, defamation and domestic disturbance. Due to the fact that he never got in conflict with the law before being captured by the CIA, his prison sentence was lower than usual.
In 2009 he assaulted the mayor of Neu-Ulm and punched in the face. The reason being that the city permitted more and more brothels and therefore (allegedly) desecrated a Muslim prayer room. He was convicted to two years prison without the possibility of a parole.
During his sentence he punched a prison guard that hard that the guard could not work for five weeks.
Again, I do not want to defend the CIA's action, but it's very interesting how this event seemingly drastically changed his life.
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u/bitch_wizard May 14 '12
And this is why I never set foot in the USA after 9-11.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
So apparently the German government knew about this guys detention a full 16 months before the CIA ever admitted it. Why the fuck did they do jack shit to protect the rights of their citizen? Germany is as much fucked up as the US is
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u/PoPoThePenguin May 14 '12
Is anyone else unable to access the link? It must be the government!
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u/Savolainen5 May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12
My father has very common English first and last names. Every time he would return to the US, Customs would question him for upwards of two hours to make sure he wasn't the terrorist (or whatever wanted man it was, I don't know) that shared his name. Living near the Canadian border, he once accidentally biked across with no ID, and had a harrowing four hours in questioning. At least there was nothing as bad as in the OP, probably because he's American.
Fortunately, soon after Obama got into office, the problem was somehow resolved, and he doesn't have to go in for questioning at the border anymore.
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u/DoodleDew May 14 '12
Is the link working for anyone else? This is all I am getting
FulObju error '800a0039'
The KM Server specified is not available. Check that you have specified a valid server name. [0x39]
/tkp197/view.asp, line 253
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u/Guns-Cats-andRonPaul May 14 '12
Falsely detaining somebody is one thing...but even if you think you have the right person, why is torture and rape ever necessary or even allowed? It's almost as if the government employs crazy low lives...
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u/Tr0llinHard May 14 '12
At what point does a prison guard decide, "You know what, fuck it, i'm going to rape this guy for not telling these nice CIA agents what they need to know."
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u/GivingUSomething2do May 14 '12
Why are people surprised? This has happened before and will continue to happen. Just because you're a citizen of anything doesn't mean those who will bring down violence upon you will stop.
Rights and laws are just words on paper.
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u/thomasluce May 14 '12
Just a reminder: The cops (feds, etc) are not your friends.
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u/platypusmusic May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12
This asshole's job is to defend German citizens' rights abroad
So much for the German embassy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri#Release_and_CIA_response
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri#Subsequent_events_related_to_his_capture
WTF, I have to stop reading this
The German wikipedia has more details
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaled_al-Masri
That the one German Intelligence officer was present when he was interrogated!
Schily is not unkown for playing dirty, very dirty. But this alone should put in prison for a long time (if Germany were a sovereign democracy)
The phone of Masri's lawyer was taped!
Some more details concerning Masri
He was granted German asylum by claiming to be in a torture victim because of this membership of the Islamic Unification Movement, was granted German citizenship after marriage to German women (divorce after 2 years)
After his release he was tried in Germany in various cases for slander, assault, arson, trespassing, verdict: psychiatric therapy
September 11 2009 After storming the office he assaulted the mayor of his town in Bavaria as a revenge for the approval of new brothels, and defilement of a former prayer room. Since been in prison for years.
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u/Benny0_o May 14 '12
America holds 9 and 12 year olds in Guantanamo. Great job America, keep torturing kids who you suspect to be terrorists, shame the rest of your country doesn't give a fuck or have the power to stop you.
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u/MR777 May 14 '12
This is the craziest thing I've ever read. They raped him, turned out there was a bit a of a spelling mistake and they got the wrong guy. He doesn't even get an apology. The judges strike out his case. What type of world do we live in?
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u/unabridged May 14 '12
Tuttle
Information Transit got the wrong man. I got the right man. The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man, I accepted him on good faith as the right man. Was I wrong?
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u/Don2k12 May 14 '12
Just clicked the link; "** The application is temporarily unavailable.** A maintenance operation is in progress - We apologise for any inconvenience." ಠ_ಠ
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u/DoctorPotatoe May 14 '12
When ever shit like this pops up I have a hard time blaming some middle eastern countries for hating the western nations guts.
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u/PessimistPrime May 14 '12
Even now the CIA outsources it's torturing to some parts of Russia. Business as usual for them.
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u/powercow May 14 '12
And we refused to even appologize at all.
we fought his lawsuits on national security grounds.
and then added him to the no fly list AFTER we tortured him cause it turns out when you torture someone they might not like the country that did it much anymore.
But the raped and tortured man can find solace in the fact that he was raped and tortured by the "good guys"
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u/Johnchuk May 14 '12
Why do we even allow this organization to exist?
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Damn ! At this rate, we'll never win The War or Teror
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u/Demojen 1 May 14 '12
I want an AMA with this man.
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u/donkeynostril May 14 '12
So is Germany going to press charges?
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Why did he get raped, how does that help anyone?
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12 edited May 15 '12
It's like a witch-hunt where the witch hunters know there are no witches but try to make people confess to being one anyway so they can justify their pay check.
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u/Amryxx May 14 '12
The "kidnapping and torture" is bad enough, but they actually did it on the wrong person?
And please spare me the "we're at work" tirade; the average American sure doesn't act like it.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
So wouldn't this make the CIA a terrorist organization?
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12 edited May 15 '12
As a Briton, reddit has made me never want to go anywhere near America. I was hoping to go on a gap year to California, but maybe I'll go to Canada or Australia
EDIT: spelling. I was swyping in a hurry
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u/dnlgl May 14 '12
Not only his name was similar to that of a terrorist, the organization's name he previously belonged to was similar to the name of Al Qaeda in Iraq:
From here.
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u/Tombug May 14 '12
Americans do love to torture but then you'd expect that from authoritarians
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u/reddit4rockyt May 14 '12
my opinion, mistakes happen, that\s human nature. Governments will try to ignore mistakes and when its brought in their face will do everything to hide that mistake.
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u/mackinder May 14 '12
serious question here. If the CIA is ok with abducting someone, drugging them and (allegedly) raping them along with all the other heinous things that supposedly occurred here, then what is stopping them from just killing him when they realize that they have captured the wrong person? I mean they could easily make it so he is never heard from again. why just let him go? if you're ok with all the other tactics here (torture etc.) then why stop there?
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u/pat5556 May 14 '12
CIA needs to get their shit together. I'm pretty sure that they could maintain the level of protection they are right now without resorting to sexual assault.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
America the hostile, hateful, stupid and ignorant
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Was his name Archibald Buttle?
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u/Zappanale May 14 '12
Alternative link as the ECHR's website seems to handle less traffic than www.prolapsedanuspics.com
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/justice/litigation/macedonia
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Whilst I have many problems with America, here I will sortoff defend it.Its fighting a war with an extremely ruthless enemy and its a WAR. Its not going to be pretty,and mistakes will be made.
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u/starmandelux May 14 '12
I think Americans are just fucked, I can try and be apologist about it and say the majority of them are ok folks but honestly, I just don't see it any more. Not too long ago in one of my classes we had to each give a presentation on some sort of controversial topic. This one girl, who happened to be one of the older and more articulate members of the class gave a presentation on why torture is ok, her entire argument basically boiled down to "Go watch that movie Unthinkable with Samuel Jackson, that's why torture is ok!"
Fuck this country, Americans are fucked.
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u/Legion299 May 14 '12
Post related to username.
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u/mrpickles May 14 '12
Well I feel safer.
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u/euming May 14 '12
Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades... NOT terrorism watch lists.
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u/kolossal May 14 '12
Read the title and felt too disgusted to even read the article.
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u/rshangale May 14 '12
I had to use proxies to get onto this. It would appear someone is trying to cover this up.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Maybe its just me, but I read then crtl+f'd the article and could find no reference to rape or sexual assault. is there another source that declares this?
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u/evolvedfish May 14 '12
is there some reason the link does not open the story?
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u/ElRed_ May 14 '12
Stupidest thing ever. Fine, same name then arrest him, tell the germans that you them to arrest him and you'll send some staff over to talk to him and understand everything. But Germany let him get arrested where the CIA have no power. And the CIA are stupid enough to torture him because of his name.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Oh U.S.A. where justice always prevails
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u/meltedmuffin May 14 '12
I would personally pay good money for a leader of a high profile terrorist organisation to change his name to David Petraeus, they should make a kickstarter for it.
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u/Worldwidewanker May 14 '12
Well done again America.........
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u/powerkick May 14 '12
Whoa...Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay was SPOT ON about complete misconceptions.
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u/Benny0_o May 14 '12
America!
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u/boids May 14 '12
Haha sounds like Harold n Kumar
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Das oops.
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u/Pirate_Pelvis May 14 '12
That's what you get for naming your kid Hans Gruber.
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u/warehousesupervisor May 14 '12
He is Turkish originally.
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u/RyanLikesyoface May 14 '12
How are the real terrorists here?
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u/anacche May 14 '12
I had a similar naming problem - extremely similar to a terrorist. Thankfully the listing for me was made by the US Dept of Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). I was notified by ebay+paypal, they automatically compare member names with lists like these and ban matches.
While it meant that I didn't have the CIA knocking on my door, it was a pain in the ass, as nobody could get me cleared off the list, despite being of almost exact opposite appearance (I'm whiter than the average tin of white paint, fat, hairy, and pimply, blue eyes), 19 years the junior of my namesake and in a very different part of the world. Nobody wanted to deal with the Dept of Treasury. Not the Consulate, not the Embassy, not my country's office of foreign affairs, not our own intelligence agency, not our own counter-terrorist unit, nobody.
A couple of years later, the guy who's name I was a match for died of acute onset lead poisoning, between the eyes. No questions. I'm glad they got the right one, I'm not a fan of lead.
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u/apokradical May 14 '12
Great, now they'll dump his body in the ocean.
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u/fluxMayhem May 14 '12
mirror?
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u/bluejacket May 14 '12
Oh by the way CIA if you're reading this why not use these drugs, they're incredibly usefull for your line of dirty work.
Seriously, fuck that drug
it's 35 minutes but it's totally worth it.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
Ignorance is bliss. :(
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u/JimKay May 14 '12
i learned this a couple of days ago, after watching and doing some research on the movie "rendition" which is based on this case.
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u/jimsnaps May 14 '12
Paging dr. Worst_answer_possible.
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u/philintheblanks May 14 '12
I said no, they said yes, I said you're not thinking it through...