Attorney: CIA torture to blame for arson

A man who claims the CIA kidnapped and tortured him in a case of mistaken identity fell into criminality after returning to Germany because of his treatment by the U.S., his attorney said as his arson trial opened Monday.

Khaled el-Masri, a 44-year-old German of Lebanese descent, faces charges of arson, serious bodily injury and slander for two incidents this year. In one, officials say, he attempted to set fire to a store after an argument with sales staff escalated.

Defense lawyer Manfred Gnjidic told the state court in the southern town of Memmingen that his client admitted the charges against him, but argued el-Masri was suffering the aftereffects of his ordeal at the hands of the Americans and accused the German government of not giving him the psychiatric help he needed.

He said el-Masri sees "shadows behind every corner."

El-Masri could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, but before the trial Gnjidic said he hoped that the court would sentence his client to no more than two years' probation with psychiatric therapy.

El-Masri is best known for his assertion that he was mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers and was kidnapped while attempting to enter Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003.

He claims he was flown to a CIA-run prison known as the "salt pit" in Afghanistan, where he was beaten and sexually abused with an object during five months in captivity before being released in Albania in May 2004.

El-Masri's claims, which prompted strong international criticism of the rendition program, were backed by European investigations and U.S. news reports. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that U.S. officials acknowledged that el-Masri's detention was a mistake.

The U.S. government has neither confirmed nor denied el-Masri's account and, in urging the court not to hear the case, said that the facts central to el-Masri's claims "concern the highly classified methods and means of the program."

In October the U.S. Supreme Court rejected without comment el-Masri's appeal to have U.S. courts hear his claims, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if courts allowed the case to proceed.

Human rights campaigners seized on el-Masri's story to press the U.S. to stop flying terrorism suspects to countries other than the U.S. where they could face abuse and torture — a practice known as "extraordinary rendition."

His case also caused trans-Atlantic friction in April when Munich prosecutors issued warrants for the 13 CIA agents suspected in the alleged kidnapping. U.S. officials have declined to discuss the case, and Washington has refused to extradite the agents.

El-Masri was detained in May after the incident at a Metro superstore in the southern city of Neu-Ulm and sent briefly to the psychiatric ward of a hospital for treatment.

Gnjidic told the court that el-Masri admitted getting into a heated argument with two saleswomen over the return of an MP3 player he had purchased, and spitting at one of them. The slander accusation comes from that incident.

He then returned to the store with four gas canisters and set a fire outside a side entrance that caused $147,000 in water and smoke damage.

The attorney said el-Masri also admitted punching an official at a driver's testing center who told him that he had missed too many hours in his training as a truck driver. The man was treated in the hospital for head injuries.

The incident occurred several months before the supermarket fire.