U.S. "interrogated" the wrong guy in Afghanistan for 5 months on a hunch

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6288879&cKey=1133716834000

Report says US told Germany CIA imprisonment a mistake

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States admitted to German officials last year that the CIA had mistakenly imprisoned one of its citizens for five months but asked the German government to remain quiet, according to a U.S. media report on Sunday. snip

El-Masri, a German national who was arrested in Macedonia on December 31, 2003, has said he was handed to U.S. officials and flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was held in appalling conditions and interrogated as a terrorism suspect.

He has said he was returned to Europe five months later when the CIA realised they had the wrong man.

"Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center's al Qaeda unit 'believed he was someone else,' one former CIA official said. 'She didn't really know. She just had a hunch,'" the Post report said.

Can't wait to hear this guys story.

First heard of this last year.

A definate oops.

But with the money saved by all these cutbacks in child welfare, education and social services why in the heck
can't we provide our intelligence community with good victim identification and 16th century torture tools? What is this country coming to?...do I really need the sarc thingy?...

The ability to identify sarcasm has atrophied on DU ... it's almost vestigial, now. :shrug:

The chimp will award all the spook goons the Medal of Freedom.

Case closed.