The CIA's El-Masri Abduction: Cables Show Germany Caved to Pressure from Washington

Court rejects el-Masri suit against German gov't
BERLIN - A German court rejected a Lawsuit filed by Khaled el-Masri seeking to force Berlin into prosecuting suspected CIA agents he alleges illegally detained him nearly eight years ago as part of the U.S. rendition program. The Cologne Administrative Court, in a ruling on Dec. 7, supported Berlin's decision not to seek the Americans' Extradition after Washington told the Germans in 2007 it would reject any attempts to prosecute its agents, citing National Security concerns. The ruling wa...

Court rejects el-Masri suit against German gov't
A German court has rejected a Lawsuit filed by Khaled el-Masri seeking to force Berlin to prosecute CIA agents he alleges illegally detained him nearly eight years ago as part of the U.S. rendition program. In a ruling published Friday, the Cologne Administrative supported Berlin's decision not to seek the Americans' Extradition after Washington told Berlin it would reject any attempts to prosecute its agents, citing National Security concerns. El-Masri, a German of Lebanese descent, says he was...

(WikiLeaks Cables: US) Officials Pressed Germans on Kidnapping by C.I.A.
Source: NYT By MICHAEL SLACKMAN Published: December 8, 2010 Berlin — American officials exerted sustained pressure on Germany not to enforce arrest warrants against Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in the 2003 Kidnapping of a German citizen mistakenly believed to be a Terrorist, diplomatic cables made public by Wikileaks show. John M. Koenig, the American deputy chief of mission in Berlin, issued a pointed warning in February 2007 urging that Germany “weigh carefully at every step o..

U.S. issues travel warning for Haiti
Published: Dec. 10, 2010 at 11:06 AM WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- No one is immune from Kidnapping or Sexual Assault in the post-election violence in Haiti, the U.S. State Department said in a travel warning. Already struggling to recover from a massive Earthquake in January, violence escalated in Haiti as the country geared up for presidential Elections. Rioters took to the streets following the first round of elections in late November in cities throughout the country. The U.S. State Departmen...

Cables Show U.S. Pressed Germany on C.I.A. Case
BERLIN — American officials exerted sustained pressure on Germany not to enforce arrest warrants against Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in the 2003 Kidnapping of a German citizen mistakenly believed to be a Terrorist, diplomatic cables made public by Wikileaks show. Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen mistakenly believed to be a Terrorist, sued Central Intelligence Agency for Kidnapping him in 2003. Articles in this series will examine American diplomatic cables as a window...

Dutch Teen Arrested For Operation Payback
Operation Payback shut down MasterCard and Visa for several hours on Wednesday. Dutch authorities have Arrested a 16-year-old boy for participating in Operation Payback, a series of cyberattacks aimed at the websites of companies and institutions involved with silencing Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and stopping the spread of top-secret diplomatic cables he released through his website, Wikileaks. In a statement released on its website, the Dutch National Prosecutor’s Office said the yo...

Burma Building Nuke Sites
The Guardian reports: Witnesses in Burma claim to have seen evidence of secret nuclear and missile sites being built in remote jungle, according to secret US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, heightening concerns that the Military regime is seeking to develop Nuclear Weapons. A Burmese officer quoted in a cable from the US Embassy in Burma said he had witnessed North Korean technicians helping to construct an underground facility in foothills more than 300 miles (480km) north-west of Ra...

WikiLeaks cables suggest Burma is building secret nuclear sites
Source: The Guardian Witnesses in Burma claim to have seen evidence of secret nuclear and missile sites being built in remote jungle, according to secret US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, heightening concerns that the Military regime is seeking to develop Nuclear Weapons. A Burmese officer quoted in a cable from the US Embassy in Burma said he had witnessed North Korean technicians helping to construct an underground facility in foothills more than 300 miles (480km) north-west of Rango...

Some in Washington still oppose Pollard release
Here in Israel, we're often puzzled that Jonathan Pollard hasn't been released from Prison already. We wonder why President Obama hasn't pulled the trigger, and why Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn't seem to be doing all he could to bring about Pollard's release. But apparently there's a big problem. Not everyone in Washington wants to see Pollard released. And by referring to documents that no one can access they are preventing an intelligent debate in which Pollard's case can be fairly heard. ...

Amazon.com Evicts Wikileaks. Who's Next?
Under pressure from Sen. Joe Lieberman, Amazon.com kicked Wikileaks.org off its servers. But why stop there? There's all kinds of Controversial customers the cowardly but remarkably convenient e-tailer can flee from. Take Hillary Clinton. Wikileaks revealed the Secretary of State to have "illegally" spied on the United Nations, but she remains welcome in Amazon's books section. Of course, Clinton didn't disseminate thousands of secret diplomatic cables. Or actually, wait, she did, but through ...

Draghi warns on bond purchases
European Central Bank action to calm tensions in Eurozone bond markets must remain firmly controlled, otherwise the euro’s monetary guardian risks “losing everything we have”, one of its most ­senior policymakers has warned. Mario Draghi, Italy’s Central Bank Governor, says in an interview with the Financial Times that large-scale purchases of Government Bonds could threaten the ECB’s freedom to act without political interference and break European Union rules. “I&#

Stuxnet Worm Continue to Wreak Havoc in Iran
Whoever designed this thing created a weapon of incredible power: EXCLUSIVE: Iran's Nuclear Program is still in chaos despite its leaders' adamant claim that they have contained the computer worm that attacked their facilities, cybersecurity experts in the United States and Europe say. The American and European experts say their security websites, which deal with the computer worm known as Stuxnet, continue to be swamped with traffic from Tehran and other places in the Islamic Republic, an indi...

US concerned Mozambique becoming drug hub
MAPUTO, Mozambique - The United States is concerned that Mozambique could become a narco-state because of close ties between Drug Smugglers and the southeastern African nation's government, according to U.S. Embassy cables released by Wikileaks. The four cables released this week cite unnamed officials from Law Enforcement, the ruling FRELIMO party and business figures, as well as local media reports. The cables say Cocaine, Heroin and other drugs come in from South America and Asia, and a...

WikiLeaks: US pressured Germans on CIA warrants
WASHINGTON—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, the second in command at the Berlin Embassy, reported he had told the German deputy National Security adviser th...

Cold War drama on tap at Mariners' Museum
NEWPORT NEWS, Virginia -- Norman Polmar was skeptical that the people involved in Project Azorian would ever talk about it. Consider the subject. Project Azorian was the code name for the CIA’s top-secret attempt to raise a sunken Soviet sub during the heart of the Cold War. The sub was laden with Nuclear Weapons, cryptology equipment and the remains of dead sailors. The effort was billed as an undersea mining operation, and a suspicious Soviet Navy -- they couldn’t find their own su...

Revealed: Assange 'rape' accuser linked to notorious CIA operative
Comment: We are collecting these stories because they are important for keeping track of what may be going on behind the scenes as well as in the court of Public Opinion. SOTT's official view can be found here. We support Julian Assange and Wikileaks fully, and hope to see his legal troubles come to an end and the future of global leaking of evil secrets assured. © Unknown Anna Ardin may have "ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups" One of the women accusing WikiLe...

Man raised as Russian spy turns double-agent on his dad to avoid prison...
The son of a CIA officer who spied for Russia avoided a Prison sentence after he promised to help build a new case against his father. Nathan Nicholson travelled the world meeting Russian agents to collect payments on behalf of his father, Harold 'Jim' Nicholson. He is currently serving 24 years at a federal Prison in Oregon for his 1997 Espionage conviction. Yesterday, US District Judge Anna Brown sentenced Nathan Nicholson to five years' Probation and 100 hours Community Service after agreeing...

5 ex-captives seek to revive torture-flights suit
Wet weather today, 70s by the weekend 12.08.10 (12-08) 17:27 PST WASHINGTON -- Five former U.S. captives who say they were tortured in overseas Prisons have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive their Lawsuit accusing a Bay Area flight-planning company of arranging their transportation for the CIA. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the suit dismissed in September, agreeing with the Obama Administration that the case could threaten National Security. On Tuesday, th...

5 ex-captives seek to revive torture-flights suit
(12-08) 17:27 PST WASHINGTON -- Five former U.S. captives who say they were tortured in overseas Prisons have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive their Lawsuit accusing a Bay Area flight-planning company of arranging their transportation for the CIA. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the suit dismissed in September, agreeing with the Obama Administration that the case could threaten National Security. On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union, representin...

Kessler Shamelessly Plugs His Wife's Book
Kessler Shamelessly Plugs His Wife's Book Topic: Newsmax Ronald Kessler's Dec. 8 Newsmax column is nothing more than a shameless plug for his wife's book. Kessler begins with an anecdote about the CIA Christmas Party, then abruptly shifts into shill mode: There is no better description of CIA headquarters than in my wife Pamela Kessler’s “Undercover Washington: Where Famous Spies Lived, Worked and Loved.” This is followed first by an Amazon link to buy the book -- stra...

Tomgram: Fatima Bhutto, The War Against Pakistan
In other words, anywhere we have a foot in the door of war, the next thing you know we're trying to slip a (uniformed) body through it as well. That catches the American way of war these days and helps explain why we always seem to end up more, not less involved, in conflict in distant lands. Among the places where the U.S. offers big dollars for the right to blast the hell out of things, Yemen is actually a Johnny-come-lately. Only recently have American officials made Sana'a, its capital, a ...

UPDATE 1-WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer took aim at Nigeria AG
Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:52am EST * Pfizer sought evidence of Corruption by AG - cables * Pfizer wanted AG to drop legal action - cables * Pfizer denies allegations (Adds Pfizer statement, changes dateline to NEW YORK) NEW YORK, Dec 10 (Reuters) - U.S. drugmaker Pfizer (PFE.N) hired investigators to find evidence of Corruption against Nigeria's Attorney General to convince him to drop legal action against the company over a drug trial involving Children, the Guardian newspaper reported, citing U.S....

Beastly beauty gets two years in prison
TUCSON, Ariz. — A former Beauty Queen and University of Arizona Law School Student can add “Prison” to her resume. That’s where she’s headed for orchestrating the kidnap and Torture of her ex-boyfriend. Kumari Fulbright, 28, was slapped with two years in prison and six years’ Probation yesterday. She pleaded guilty last year to Conspiracy to commit Kidnapping and assault in a plea deal that stipulated she don prison garb. She and three men were arrested in 20...

Jury begins deliberations in Smart kidnapping case
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A federal jury has begun deliberations in the Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping trial. Brian David Mitchell is charged in Salt Lake City's U.S. District Court with Kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for the purposes of Illegal Sex. If convicted, the 57-year-old former Street Preacher could spend the rest of his life in Prison. The jury has three options in reaching a decision: guilty, Not Guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity. Mitchell's...

Former Miss Arizona gets prison for kidnap plot
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - A former Beauty Queen and University of Arizona law school Student accused of orchestrating the Kidnapping and torturing of her ex-boyfriend is going to Prison. Pima County prosecutors say 28-year-old Kumari Fulbright was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison and six years' Probation. She pleaded guilty last year to Conspiracy to commit Kidnapping and Aggravated Assault as part of a plea agreement that stipulated the prison sentence. The Arizona Daily Star says it was ...