Nine years after his arrest in Macedonia and abduction to Afghanistan - where he was interrogated and tortured - Khaled el-Masri on Thursday won a demand for damages before Europe's top human rights court. In its first ruling on the US Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) "extraordinary rendition" programme, the European Court of Human Rights held Macedonia responsible for el-Masri's mistreatment and ordered the government to pay him 60,000 euros (78,300 dollars) in damages.
El-Masri, 49, a German man of Lebanese origin, was detained by Macedonian police in December 2003 and taken to a hotel, where he was held incommunicado and interrogated for three weeks about his alleged ties to terrorist organisations before being handed over to the US secret service.
Disguised agents, believed to be from the CIA, then tortured him at Skopje airport before flying him to Afghanistan, where he was held in a dark cell and beaten during interrogations until finally being released in May 2004, after two hunger strikes. By the time he was brought back to Germany, via Albania, he had lost 18 kilogrammes. Reacting to the verdict, el-Masri's lawyer, Darian Pavl, said it was a "signal to all countries who are planning to collaborate with the US that these practices cannot be justified and that their governments and individual officials will be held responsible."
Amnesty International also hailed the ruling. "This judgement confirms the role Macedonia played in the Central Intelligence Agency rendition and secret detention programmes, and is an important step towards accountability for European complicity in rendition and torture," said Julia Hall, Amnesty International's expert on counter-terrorism and human rights.
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