A German citizen who said he was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency and tortured in a prison in Afghanistan lost his last chance to seek redress in court today when the Supreme Court declined to consider his case. The justices’ refusal to take the case of Khaled el-Masri let stand a March 2 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va. That court upheld a 2006 decision by a federal district judge, who dismissed Mr. Masri’s lawsuit on grounds that trying the case could expose state secrets. ... Mr. Masri contended in his suit that he was seized by local law enforcement officials while vacationing in Macedonia on New Year’s Eve 2003. At the time, he was 41 years old and an unemployed car salesman. “They asked a lot of questions — if I have relations with Al Qaeda, Al Haramain, the Islamic Brotherhood,” Mr. Masri said in a 2005 interview with The New York Times. “I kept saying no, but they did not believe me.” After 23 days, he said, he was turned over to C.I.A. operatives, who flew him to a secret C.I.A. prison in Kabul. There, Mr. Masri said, he was kept in a small, filthy cell and shackled, drugged and beaten while being interrogated about his supposed ties to terrorist organizations. At the end of May 2004, Mr. Masri said, he was released in a remote part of Albania without ever having been charged with a crime. full story

This is outrageous. The blocking of a trial with spurious claims of "state secrets" is, in my opinion, tantamount to an admission of guilt. This crime is even more blatant by the fact that this German citizen was flown to Kabul — an occupied territory of the United States. Does anyone really doubt who's in charge in Afghanistan or Iraq? The crimes of puppet governments are crimes of the puppeteer. It is a further crime that Khaled el-Masri cannot peruse justice in an American court and it is likely that neither those who kidnapped and tortured him nor those that ordered the kidnapping and torture will ever be extradited to stand trial in Germany.

British sailors and marines were blindfolded and kept in isolation from each other during most of their 13-day detention in Iran, members of the naval crew said Friday in their first public comments since being released. Six of the 15 captured crew held a news conference at Royal Marine Base Chivenor a day after they arrived back in Britain. "The pressures we were subjected to were quite diverse. It was mainly psychological and emotional," said Lieut. Felix Carman. "We were blindfolded at all times and kept in isolation from each other." ... Carman said when they first arrived at the Tehran prison, they were blindfolded and ordered to stand against a wall with their hands bound as "people were cocking weapons in the background." That experience was "an extremely nerve-racking occasion," said Carman. "There were lots of tactics like that that were employed." At one point, the lone female sailor, Faye Turney, was told the other 14 sailors and marines had been sent back to Britain and that she was left alone, they said. full article

The British sailors were treated badly in Iranian hands. But, they are lucky the weren't captured by the Bush regime and sent to Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib. The ordeal these sailors endured was nothing compared to what the Bush administration has been promoting as standards of prisoner treatment and interrogation.

This sore of psychological and emotional abuse of prisoners is not acceptable, but Bush's long term unapologetic abuse of prisoners have made it virtually impossible for any United States ally to effectively speak out against this kind of mistreatment, and that goes doubly for the Bush's closest friend and enabler: Tony Blair.