Gold9472
08-21-2006, 08:44 AM
CIA allegedly abducted Muslims in Austria
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=22&art_id=iol1156096679721B223
August 20 2006 at 08:13PM
Austria - The CIA abducted at least two Muslims residents in Austria, including one with links to a former imam in Italy who was similarly abducted, Profil magazine reported in its Monday edition.
According to Profil, US secret service agents grabbed Gamal Menshawi, an Egyptian doctor and an eminent member of a Muslim community in the south-eastern town of Graz, when his flight stopped over in Amman, Jordan, in late 2002.
Menshawi was suspected of belonging to the Egyptian Islamist extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah.
He had links, Profil said, with Osama Mustafa Hassan, an Egyptian Muslim cleric also known as Abu Omar, who was allegedly kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency in the northern Italian city of Milan in February 2003.
Both men were held in the same prison in Egypt, the weekly said.
Hassan's abduction sparked an investigation in Italy that revealed that members of Italy's SISMI secret service colluded in the operation. Two top SISMI officials have been placed under house arrest and its director questioned.
Profil also recounted the experience of a Muslim computer technician, native to an east African country but resident in Vienna, who claimed to have been snatched during a stopover in Jordan in January 2003.
"I was hit and deprived of sleep for several nights and interrogated by Jordanian and American experts," said the man, whose identity was not revealed. He said he was held for three months and then released.
According to Profil, Austria's domestice intelligence service BVT worked closely with the CIA in the operations.
Austria's interior ministry has denied any knowledge of the affair.
Profil, a respected Austrian magazine, broke the story in 1986 of the Nazi past of former UN secretary general Kurt Waldheim and his stint in the Wehrmacht.
The human rights group Amnesty International said last month that Jordan was a "central hub" in the secret and illegal transfer of people believed by the CIA to have links to terrorism.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=22&art_id=iol1156096679721B223
August 20 2006 at 08:13PM
Austria - The CIA abducted at least two Muslims residents in Austria, including one with links to a former imam in Italy who was similarly abducted, Profil magazine reported in its Monday edition.
According to Profil, US secret service agents grabbed Gamal Menshawi, an Egyptian doctor and an eminent member of a Muslim community in the south-eastern town of Graz, when his flight stopped over in Amman, Jordan, in late 2002.
Menshawi was suspected of belonging to the Egyptian Islamist extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah.
He had links, Profil said, with Osama Mustafa Hassan, an Egyptian Muslim cleric also known as Abu Omar, who was allegedly kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency in the northern Italian city of Milan in February 2003.
Both men were held in the same prison in Egypt, the weekly said.
Hassan's abduction sparked an investigation in Italy that revealed that members of Italy's SISMI secret service colluded in the operation. Two top SISMI officials have been placed under house arrest and its director questioned.
Profil also recounted the experience of a Muslim computer technician, native to an east African country but resident in Vienna, who claimed to have been snatched during a stopover in Jordan in January 2003.
"I was hit and deprived of sleep for several nights and interrogated by Jordanian and American experts," said the man, whose identity was not revealed. He said he was held for three months and then released.
According to Profil, Austria's domestice intelligence service BVT worked closely with the CIA in the operations.
Austria's interior ministry has denied any knowledge of the affair.
Profil, a respected Austrian magazine, broke the story in 1986 of the Nazi past of former UN secretary general Kurt Waldheim and his stint in the Wehrmacht.
The human rights group Amnesty International said last month that Jordan was a "central hub" in the secret and illegal transfer of people believed by the CIA to have links to terrorism.