Reuters: Did German citizen adbucted by US receive payment to keep quite?

[ProSense]

German abduction case gets murkier: did US pay?
By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent

BERLIN (Reuters) - German politicians expressed surprise on Thursday at reported U.S. comments that Washington had apologized and paid money to a German citizen it abducted to Afghanistan and held for months as a terrorist suspect.


Snip...

"That is an additional admission. You don't pay money unless you're conscious of making a serious mistake," he told Reuters.

In a U.S. lawsuit against ex- CIA director George Tenet and other unnamed officials, Masri is seeking compensation of at least $75,000, plus "punitive and exemplary damages" and legal fees.

"If the Americans say he already received money...then that's a question that is obviously significant to this legal case and I assume it will be cleared up in the United States," Stroebele said.

more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051215/pl_nm/security_germany_usa_dc

[mmonk]

1. Corporations try to settle out of court.

[ProSense]

2. Yes, but

corporations shouldn't be in the business of abducting innocent people and holding them for months with no proof, then paying them off as atonement for violating their civil rights.

Murky: Seems to me the lawsuit brings into question whether actually received money or is being greedy after accepting payment for his silence.

[Stockholm]

3. In FT today "US 'apologised' over abduction by CIA of German citizen"

The US has apologised and given financial compensa-tion to Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent who was abducted two years ago by the CIA, Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's interior minister said yesterday.

Mr Schäuble said that the US ambassador to Berlin had told the German government about the gestures on May 31 2004, a few days afterMr Masri was released from CIA custody in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Manfred Gnjidic, Mr Masri's lawyer, said that his client denied that he had received compensation - rumoured to be up to $500,000 (€420,000) - from the US.

Experts in Germany said that, if Mr Schäuble's comments were accurate, it would be the first time that information had been released concerning apologies or compensation payments by the US government to people abducted under the CIA's controversial renditions policy.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ad30ff60-6d0f-11da-90c2-0000779e2340.html

[liveoaktx]

4. VIDEO-background on El-Masri

El Masri -Rice-ACLU

If you want to know how horrifying this really was, that the US DOES do rendition, that Rice ADMITS (sort of) that the US made mistakes about this, and hear El-Masri talk about what happened, watch this