German targets Macedonia over CIA-run prison case

PARIS – Europe's human rights court is hearing the case of a German citizen who says the CIA illegally whisked him to a secret prison in Afghanistan in one of the biggest embarrassments of the U.S. war on terrorism.

Khaled El-Masri, who is of Lebanese descent, says he was brutally interrogated at a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan for more than four months after being kidnapped from Macedonia in 2003, apparently mistaken for a terror suspect.

He says he went on hunger strike for 27 days and was eventually flown back to Europe and abandoned in a mountainous area in Albania.

Authorities in Macedonia have denied any involvement in el-Masri's alleged kidnapping.

The hearing Wednesday before the European Court of Human Rights in eastern Strasbourg, France — which is under the direction of the 47-member Council of Europe — concerns El-Masri's case against Macedonian authorities for their participation in multiple human rights abuses in connection with his kidnapping.