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German Lawmakers Fault Abduction Probe
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German prosecutors acknowledged that Masri's attorney gave them a copy of the flight manifest last December. But they waited four months before they sent a letter to Spanish authorities asking for official confirmation and assistance, according to German media reports.
"I don't want to put pressure on the justice system, but it surprises me that it is moving so slowly and that they are taking so much time to come up with the information," said Cem Ozdemir, a German delegate to the European Parliament and member of another panel that is scrutinizing CIA counterterrorism activity in Europe. "I think they're thinking twice before taking any action."
Many layers of mystery still surround Masri's disappearance. He has testified that he left his home in Ulm, Germany, on Dec. 31, 2003, after a squabble with his wife and decided on a whim to travel to Skopje, where he was detained at the border by Macedonian authorities.
According to his account, he was handed over to the CIA and taken to Kabul, where he spent four months in a dank cell before being flown back to the Balkans and set free on a hillside in Albania, with little explanation and no apology.
The German government has denied any involvement and said U.S. authorities informed it of the abduction only after Masri's release in May 2004.
A German federal police investigator testified last month in Berlin, however, that Masri had been under surveillance for months before his disappearance because of suspicions he had links to a radical Islamic group based in Lebanon. The investigator testified that details of the monitoring may have been passed to U.S. intelligence agencies.
Masri has testified that he was interrogated in Kabul by a German-speaking agent named "Sam," who he assumed was working for the German government. Investigators said they have been unable to confirm that Sam was a German operative. But they are still trying to determine exactly when the German government became aware that Masri had been kidnapped and whether it could have intervened earlier on his behalf.
"It is our task to find out: When did the former German government learn about the abduction?" said Siegfried Kauder, chairman of the parliamentary committee examining the case. "What did the German government know, and when did it find out?"
Special correspondent Silke Lode contributed to this report.
