A top diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin warned the German government not to issue international arrest warrants against CIA agents involved in the 2003 abduction of a German citizen mistakenly believed to be a terrorist, according to diplomatic dispatches released Wednesday by WikiLeaks.
In the document dated Feb. 6, 2007, deputy chief of mission John M. Koenig, second in command at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, reported he had told the German deputy national security adviser that issuing the warrants “would have a negative impact on our bilateral relationship.”
Mr. Koenig’s report said he also reminded the German official, identified as Rolf Nikel, of the “repercussions to U.S.-Italian bilateral relations” after the government in Rome issued similar warrants. Koenig’s report is one of thousands being released by the secrets-spilling website.
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The warrants were issued nevertheless, but the German government never arrested the CIA operatives.
The case involved Khaled el-Masri, 44, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, who said he was a mistaken victim of the CIA’s controversial extraordinary rendition program in use during the administration of former President George W. Bush.
Mr. El-Masri said was detained while entering Macedonia on New Year’s Eve 2003 and eventually transferred to a CIA-run prison known as the “salt pit” in the Afghan capital, Kabul. He said he was beaten, sodomized and injected with drugs.
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Five months after his seizure, Mr. el-Masri said, he was dumped on a hilltop in Albania and told to walk down a path without looking back.
The CIA would not comment on the diplomatic report.
The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently upheld lower court rulings that rejected an el-Masri lawsuit that had sought damages of at least $75,000 from former CIA director George Tenet, unidentified CIA agents and others.
The courts all held that hearing the case would reveal U.S. secrets.
In his report, Mr. Koenig said he told Nikel, the German security official, that he did not intend to threaten Germany but to urge it to “weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.”
In response to the intense U.S. pressure, Mr. Koenig reported that Mr. Nikel said the German parliament and media were imposing equally severe pressure on the government to go after the CIA operatives.
Mr. Koenig said the issuance of the warrants would have “domestic political implications” for the Bush administration, which took heavy criticism at home and abroad as details of the case became known.
Mr. Nikel said he would do his best to keep Koenig informed but “could not, at this point ‘promise that everything will turn out well.’”
The el-Masri case and the Bush administration’s prosecution of the so-called war on terror and its operation of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, caused severe strains in U.S.-German relations and with many other European governments.