| BorisVM |
EU MEMBERSHIP TIED TO COOPERATION IN CIA KIDNAP CASE
Strasbourg, 12 April (AKI) - A top European official told Macedonia's premier on Wednesday that the country's prospects of joining the European Union will depend on its full cooperation in shedding light on the controversial case of Lebanese-born German citizen, Khaled el-Masr, who alleges he was kidnapped by CIA in the capital, Skopje, flown on a CIA flight to Afghanistan, and tortured there as a terror suspect for over a year, before being released. El-Masri is now suing the CIA and the United States, but many aspects of his ordeal and the CIA's secret operations in President George W. Bush's "war on terror" remain unclear. Macedonia is an official candidate for EU membership.
“If Macedonia wants to become EU member, it must give all information for preparation of the final report of the Council of Europe,” president of Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Rene van der Linden told Macedonian prime minister Vlado Buckovski, quoted by the Macedonian News Agency (MIA). "The prime minister is aware that it is a sensitive issue, especially here in the Council of Europe,” he added.
Buckovski held talks with van der Linden, and other officials during a two-day visit to Strasbourg to attend the quarterly PACE meeting. The El-Masri case was high on the agenda of the talks, according to MIA. PACE is one of the institutions of the 46-member human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe.
Unlike the European Parliament, its powers extend only to the ability to investigate, recommend and advise. Even so, its recommendations on issues such as human rights have significant weight in the European political context
Khaled El-Masri, who moved to Germany in 1985 and acquired German citizenship ten years later, was arrested on suspicion of terrorism, based on mistaken identity by Macedonian police in Skopje on December 31, 2003. After being interrogated and tortured for 23 days, El-Masri claims he was turned over to CIA agents and secretly flown to a CIA prison in Afghanistan known as Salt Pit, where torture continued for another 16 months.
A German parliamentary investigation which opened last Friday into the role of the country's BND intelligence agency during the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, will also investigated whether German officials passed on information about el-Masri to the CIA. According to his account, when CIA agents realised their mistake, they flew him secretly to Albania from Afghanistan, from where he was transferred home to Germany.
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| achtung_panzer |
Ushte eden dokaz vo kakvo drushtvo na patetihcni hipokriti sakame da vlezeme. Ova e demek stapot, morkovot beshe statusot kandidat za chlenstvo.
Koga sluchajot "tajni zatvori na CIA niz Evropa" izleze niz zapadnite mediumi, za Romanija se pishuvashe deka duri cel voen aerodrom imale pretvoreno vo taen zatvor, Polska i Bugarija isto bea posochuvani kako mozhni lokacii za tajnite pritvori... dali ovie zemji kje imaat problemi za chlenstvo vo EU? Makedonija vo tie napisi beshe spomnuvana nekade pri dnoto, i toa samo zaradi sluchajot so Masri (Libanec odi na odmor vo Makedonija? Yeah, it makes perfect sense)... |