By IRNA
Berlin : The German government has refused to forward an extradition request made by Munich prosecutors for the arrest of 13 CIA agents who are accused of masterminding the kidnapping of a Lebanese-born German citizen in December 2003, the weekly Der Spiegel said in a report to be published on Sunday.
The center-rightist government of Chancellor Angela Merkel fears that such a formal extradition request would lead to an open conflict with Washington.
According to the German Justice Ministry, the US is principally opposed to the extradition of the CIA operatives and therefore it will not make such a request to the American administration.
Meanwhile, Germany’s hardline Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had also threatened with a veto, should Berlin decide to send such an extradition bid.
German prosecutors issued the arrest warrants for 13 CIA operatives in late January for the abduction of Khaled al-Masri.
He was kidnapped by CIA agents in the Macedonian capital Skopje on New Year’s eve 2003 and flown to a jail in Afghanistan where he was interrogated, beaten and brutally tortured during a five-month ordeal.
Al-Masri was freed in Albania in May 2004 after the CIA found out that they had abducted the wrong person.
The Al-Masri case has been a sore point in US-German ties and led to a parliamentary probe on allegations German intelligence agents were involved in the kidnapping affair.
German judical authorities have repeatedly criticized the refusal of the US government to cooperate in the Al-Masri scandal.