A European court issued a landmark ruling Thursday that condemned the CIA's so-called extraordinary renditions programs and bolstered those who say they were illegally kidnapped and tortured as part of an overzealous war on terrorism.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that a German car salesman was a victim of torture and abuse, in a long-awaited victory for a man who had failed for years to get courts in the United States and Europe to recognize him as a victim.
Khaled El-Masri says he was kidnapped from Macedonia in 2003, mistaken for a terrorism suspect, then held for four months and brutally interrogated at an Afghan prison known as the "Salt Pit" run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. He says that once U.S. authorities realized he was not a threat, they illegally sent him to Albania and left him on a mountainside.
The European court, based in Strasbourg, France, ruled that El-Masri's account was "established beyond reasonable doubt" and that Macedonia "had been responsible for his torture and ill-treatment both in the country itself and after his transfer to the U.S. authorities in the context of an extra-judicial rendition."
Israeli authorities have formally allowed Jewish prayer for the first time inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied...
Haitham Rashaidh was among the last to leave his home near Ein al-Auja, a natural spring...
Life under genocide has its familiar daily rituals. A discerning eye detects latent horrors in the...
Home demolitions by Israeli forces; attacks on healthcare infrastructure, homes, and schools; mass displacement of Palestinians;...
