Editorial: Must justice be a victim?

Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007 | 6:46 a.m.

Without a word of explanation, the U.S. Supreme Court this week passed on the opportunity for justice in the case of a man whose claims of being abducted and tortured by CIA agents have credibility.

Lower federal courts accepted the Bush administration's hollow argument that allowing the man's lawsuit to go forward would endanger state secrets.

And on Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court offered no reason for dismissing the suit. It simply terminated it with no comment.

The suit against the CIA was brought by Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen. His is a harrowing story and so credible that German prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the CIA agents allegedly involved.

U.S. news reports, European investigations and a statement by German Chancellor Angela Merkel also lend credibility to el-Masri's story. The Associated Press reports Merkel has said that U.S. officials acknowledged el-Masri was mistakenly detained.

El-Masri was grabbed as he was traveling to Macedonia, a region of Greece, on New Year's Eve 2003. He claims his CIA tormenters erroneously believed he had been associated with the Sept. 11 hijackers.

He says he was put on a plane bound for a CIA prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, and that on the way he was stripped, beaten, shackled and drugged. He claims he was held for five months in that prison, which was called the "Salt Pit."

After confirming it had the wrong man, el-Masri says, the CIA released him on a hilltop in Albania, on the western border of Macedonia.

El-Masri filed his suit in hope of receiving four things: an acknowledgement from the U.S. that he was wrongly kidnapped and abused, an apology from the U.S., an explanation as to why he was singled out and at least $75,000 to compensate for his ordeal.

Instead, he got nothing.

We believe the high court should have taken the case. State secrets are important but justice is sacred. We cannot accept that they are mutually exclusive.