14.07.2023 20:46
(Akt. 14.07.2023 20:46)
El Masri had made his ordeal public (stock image) ©APA/Getty Images North America
Twenty years after his fateful kidnapping, the German CIA victim Khaled El Masri is living in Graz on a welfare case. As the daily newspaper “Der Standard” (weekend edition) reports, his family is threatened with losing their home due to the rise in prices. After El Masri was diagnosed with polyneuropathy last fall, the family lives on sick pay, family allowances and the children’s wages.
El Masri has to cool his feet and spend most of his time in bed, the newspaper reports. The disease can lead to paralysis and mostly affects diabetics, but El Masri is not one. “The doctors suspect that the disease is a result of his torture. They don’t know for sure,” the report says. El Masri moved to Graz a few years ago after the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) sentenced Macedonia to pay compensation of 60,000 euros for his transfer to the CIA. The German-Lebanese wanted to use this money to start a new life in Styria, opened a shop selling oriental foods and also worked as a driver.
El Masri was arrested by the police in Skopje on New Year’s Eve 2003. After weeks of interrogation, he was handed over to US intelligence. The CIA took him to Afghanistan for suspected links to terrorist networks. There he was held in a prison for more than four months and abused before he was released. El Masri had been mistaken for someone else.
El Masri is particularly bitter about the actions of the German authorities. “They are obviously proud of their crimes, otherwise they would not have sentenced me,” he said, referring to his years in prison in Germany. El Masri was convicted of beating up the mayor of the city of Neu-Ulm. The man, obviously traumatized by his experiences, blamed him for the kidnapping. When El Masri was released after a total of five years, it was clear to him that he “didn’t want to stay another second in Germany”.
In an interview, he was milder about the US secret service. The CIA “did shit, but at least they recognized it. They were ashamed of it. That’s why they threw me out in the woods,” said El Masri, who also reported in the interview that the agents handed him 14,500 euros and demanded that he not tell anyone what had happened to him.
2023-07-14 22:28:30
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