Alleged Torture Victim Speaks to Press

Khaled El-Masri, left, arrives at Federal Court with American Civil Liberties Union attorney Steven Watt in Richmond, Va., Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006. El-Masri wants the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate his lawsuit alleging human rights and due process violations by former CIA director George Tenet and others. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) (Steve Helber - AP)

WASHINGTON -- Khaled el-Masri, who claims the CIA tortured him at a prison in Afghanistan, said Wednesday that he believes forcing the U.S. government to explain what happened to him would help prevent others from suffering a similar fate.

El-Masri, a Kuwaiti-born German citizen, spoke to reporters at the National Press Club in Washington. A federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, heard arguments Tuesday by his attorneys that a lawsuit he filed against the former head of the CIA should be reinstated. He arrived Sunday from Germany and planned to brief members of Congress and staff on his experience before departing at the end of the week.

"What really matters to me is that I would like to know why this was done to me and I want an explanation and an apology," he said, regarding his lawsuit. "I think that we can all benefit from what happens in my case including others who are still in prison in other parts of the world without the rule of law."

El-Masri alleges he was kidnapped while trying to enter Macedonia for a vacation on Dec. 31, 2003. He claims he was flown to a CIA-run prison known as the "salt pit" in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was beaten and sodomized with an object during five months in captivity.

"The conditions that I was confronted with were not fit for a human," he said, speaking in German. Besides being tortured, he said, he was fed barely edible food and putrid water.

"It was like water you left in an aquarium for years," he said. "When you took one sip, the taste stayed in your mouth for hours."

The CIA has refused to comment on el-Masri's allegations, which have put a spotlight on the intelligence agency's secret rendition program to capture terror suspects for interrogation in foreign countries. The practice has been heavily criticized by human rights groups.

The lawsuit filed against former CIA director George Tenet and others was dismissed in May when a judge ruled that a trial could harm national security by revealing details about CIA activities.

El-Masri said that despite the setback, he had confidence in the courts and the U.S. justice system. He was previously denied entry into the United States when he arrived to publicize the filing of his lawsuit last year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which has supported his case. In recent weeks, he was issued a visa.

"I am so happy that I was finally allowed to enter the United States," he said Wednesday.

ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner told the court in Richmond Tuesday that el-Masri was "the public face of a publicly acknowledged program." Since the basics of the rendition program already are common knowledge, he argued, the lawsuit could be considered without exposing state secrets.

Greg Katsis, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice, argued that the government properly invoked its state secrets privilege to protect information outlined in a classified affidavit that Judge T.S. Ellis III read before dismissing the lawsuit

El-Masri's allegations also are the subject of a German parliamentary investigation that is trying to clarify when German government officials became aware of el-Masri's case and whether German security services participated in interrogations in Afghanistan.

The appeals court usually takes several weeks to issue its ruling.

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Associated Press writers Larry O'Dell and Michael Felberbaum contributed to this report from Richmond, Virginia.