Berlin -- A German court ordered the arrest of 13 people behind the alleged CIA-backed kidnapping of a German citizen, believed to be one of the most notorious U.S. "renditions" of a terror suspect. The prosecutor's office in Munich said yesterday the arrest warrants were against individuals thought to be CIA agents on suspicion of abduction and grievous bodily harm. Authorities are probing allegations by Khaled el-Masri, a Lebanese-born German, that he was abducted by U.S. agents in the Macedonian capital Skopje on New Year's Eve, 2003. He says he was flown to Afghanistan for interrogation before being released five months later in Albania. The 43-year-old unemployed car salesman and father of six also claims he was drugged and tortured. The case raised tensions when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Germany in December, 2005, at the height of a controversy over "rendition" -- flying terror suspects through European states to detention in third countries where they risk being tortured.

(Copyright National Post 2007)