Talk:Khalid El-Masri

message: I went to the effort of changing the Khalid El-Masri article to use the new {ref}-{note} pairs for the references. The thing about them is that if you re-arrange the order of the references, in the text -- as you did -- you have to put the order of the {note}s in the same order. When a reader clicks on the {ref} link it redirects to the reference section. But the reader relies on the number to determine which reference link they should follow. By rearranging the order of the {ref} tags in the text, without rearranging the order of the {note} tags, the notes bear the wrong numbers. I'd like to call on the person who made the first change to please fix the order of the {note} tags. -- Geo Swan 15:14, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My apologies. It's a pity it's getting so technically complicated for people who just want to write content. Can you direct me to the meta page that describes how to do this so I can learn how to get it right? Nurg 22:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can't change the order of the {ref} tags without changing the order of the {note} tags 

message: I've changed the name to Khaled El-Masri (from Khalid El-Masri) since Arabic to English transliteration is irrelevant to a German citizen. The name in his passport (Khaled) can be seen, for instance, from the ECHR documents related to his case: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press?i=003-3838278-4407853. Perhaps someone could assist with changing the name of the article as well as I don't know how to do this?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.156.22.83 (talk) 04:59, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the names are identical in Arabic but vary in the way they are transliterated to English. Nurg 22:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Names similar, or identical? 

message: The article now implies that Macedonian authorities had independent reasons to believe El-Masri's passport was a forgery.
If his passport was really an obvious forgery, such that it could be detected by a Macedonian border guards, then it would not have taken the CIA a month to determine it was legitimate.
My reading of the various accounts of this controversy is that the only reason his passport was suspect was that it said he was a German, when the al Qaeda suspect was not a German. This article should not imply there was independent reason to suspect his passport was a forgery, unless there really were independent reasons to suspect it was a forgery. -- Geo Swan 15:28, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Geo, it appears from the page history that on 25 Oct you wrote the sentence, "The Macedonian border officials had initially arrested him on the suspicion that his German passport was a forgery." Feel free to clarify or correct the article because I'm not sure what you mean. Nurg 00:04, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Passport suspected to be a forgery?

message: I merged the duplicate article into this one as this was the fuller article. I am not supposing that this is the best article title. I have made a number of redirects as different sources spell his English name differently. I have no objection to the article being renamed if considered appropriate. Nurg 23:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Article title and redirects

message: I take issue with Geo Swan's editing and deletion of my comments on this talk page. Joaquin Murietta 00:38, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of entries from Talk Page 

message: The article does not seem to mention anything about the search for Sam, the mysterious German who El-Masri claimed visited him in the prison. See for example http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,402289,00.html.
I also think it would be good if the article more prominently referenced material on Wikipedia about the ongoing investigation by the Council of Europe, which recently stated that Europe has become a "happy hunting ground" for foreign security services such as the CIA.
Filur 18:40, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Play it again, Sam!

message: They are two different people, so a merger would be out of place. There would also be problems with categorys, since only one can be labeled Al Quaeda member. ROGNNTUDJUU! 10:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No merger 

message: According to Ben Wizner, El-Masri's attorney, El-Masri was denied entry into the U.S. for no apparent reason.
:To add insult to injury, when he arrived at Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta, for absolutely no reason he was turned back by immigration officials and put on a plane back to Europe, after being detained for a few hours.
Can anyone else find more information on this? When did this occur? Obviously El-Masri's lawyer has his clients agenda at heart but that doesn't necessarily make him a liar. In the absence of a credible story from the government it looks as if he was sent away to avoid bad PR for the current administration. Funkyj 19:23, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Both El-Masri -- and his German lawyer -- were denied entry, when he tried to come to the USA to take part in a lawsuit being filed on his behalf. I can't remember the exact date, or the human rights organization that was assisting him. There had been speculation that he was denied entry because incompetent or malicious intelligence officials still hadn't removed his name from the "no-fly list". But denying entry to his lawyer, as well, suggests that this was not a mistake. -- Geo Swan 20:14, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the American human rights organization that attempted to help with this case was the ACLU. -Scott P. 16:02, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Denied entry into the US 

message: The December 4, 2005 Washington post article refers to El-Masri's case as a possible erroneous rendition. But El-Masri was sent to the salt pit, which was reportedly a place run by the CIA. My understanding is that "extraordinary rendition" (or "erroneous rendition") is a term used to describe transfers of people from US custody into the custody of other governments for imprisonment and/or interrogation. This does not sound like what happened here. It seems that he was captured by US forces in Macedonia, transported by US forces to Afghanistan, held by US forces in Afghanistan, and then dumped off by US forces in Albania. Since all of that involved US custody, how is that rendition? Is it the final drop in Albania that makes the term apply? But I thought the term applies only to handing people off from one captor to another—what happened in Albania was just letting the guy loose, so that doesn't really sound like rendition either. —Wookipedian 05:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll answer "yes". Plausible deniability. Janis Karpinski, in the weeks after the Abu Ghraib scandal blew up, tried to claim that Abu Ghraib was really an Iraqi facility, not a US DoD facility. If things had gone down a little differently they would have tried to claim that the salt pit was an Afghan facility, and that the CIA commandant was just an advisor to an Afghan commandant. -- Geo Swan 03:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

text: As Stephen Grey writes in Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (St. Martin's Press, 2006, ), "extraordinary rendition" is just an euphemism for "kidnapping". Initially, the idea was to bring suspects to the US to put them on trial, later, the intentions altered. As Grey writes, the term had not been made up by the CIA, but been used before by US Marshalls and FBI agents. There is no exact definition, so "rendition" and "extraordinary rendition" are used synonymously. (As I have the German edition of the book mentioned above, it makes no sense to give the page numbers where the origin of the term "extraordinary rendition" is explained; however, it is in chapter 6 of the German edition.) Pruefer 01:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can transfer to [[the salt pit]] be considered [[extraordinary rendition|rendition]]? 

message: There have been a series of unexplained edits.
#This edit is counter to the policy of compensating for the wikipedia's systematic bias. Americans may know that the CIA is an American institution. But contributors should not assume that citizens of other countries will know this. -- Geo Swan 18:03, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  unexplained edits 

message: The article said Dr Rice ordered his El-Masri's release. This was changed to say she requested his relase, becausne another editor couldn't imagine she had the authority to issue that kind of order.
This is from MSNBC:
:By May, sources say National Security Council Director Condoleezza Rice learned of the mistake and ordered El-Masri's immediate release. She said as well that the German government should be told of the incident, for diplomatic reasons. But that didn’t end the case. About two weeks later, Rice learned El-Masri was still being held and ordered him released again.
Cheers! -- Geo Swan 15:14, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Release 

message: Over a year ago I spent some time looking into the German reports that El-Masri had been a member of a radical militant group named "al-Tawhid". The claim is almost certainly bullshit -- based on confusion between Ahl al-Tawhid and Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad.
We are supposed to assume good faith, so I will assume that insertion of the allegation that El-Masri was a member of a radical militant group into the introductory material was not POV-pushing.
But I think it was, at best, extremely careless. Whoever inserted that material didn't bother to read the whole article and see that the allegation had already been addressed.
When I looked, back in March 2006, I did not find any references that definitively said El-Masri was a Druze. So, even though it the most likely explanation, it would be a violation of WP:NPOV to insert it into article space.
The material I removed didn't even make sense. It is highly credible that El-Masri could claim asylum based on membership of an oppressed minority ethnic group, like the Druze, when his country was in the midst of a civil war. It is almost unbelievable to think Germany would extend asylum to someone based on their membership in a radical militant group, like Zarqawi's. In addition, El-Masri is old than Al-Zarqawi, and Al-Zarqawi hadn't yet founded his group when El-Masri claimed asylum..
I came across reports that El-Masri had been a squad leader in a local militia when he was a young man in Lebanon. But that is hardly surprising in a country in the midst of a civil war, when practically every military age male could be expected to be a member of one local militia or another.
Hopefully, no one will re-insert the clearly bogus claim that El-Masri had been a member of Al-Zarqawi's group.
Cheers! Geo Swan 13:58, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  rm inaccurate material -- see talk 

message: The article states that Rice was aware of the error and requested El-Masri's release, using an article from MSNBC to back that statement. However, reading several other press links I find that Rice denies this. Any thoughts on this? Gandydancer (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: What did Rice know?

message: I undid a revision by Burpelson. Here is one paragraph as it stood:
He had actually requested extended therapy for his client shortly before the incident, as El-Masri felt threatened, believing to be pursued by cars and strangers. The act of arson was executed on impulse, entirely unprofessionally, and could not have led to a larger fire. While the courts recognized that El-Masri has never ever breached the law before his CIA abduction, and acknowledged that he has been traumatized, this did not now justify acts of violence. He received a suspended sentence.
The English here is just awkward, and it's making several assertions as fact (such as he "felt threatened", or this arson "could not have let to a larger fire.") when these are were actually unproven claims made by El-Masri himself. Also, the arson was done "entirely unprofessionally"? Is there a "professional" way to commit arson? That's why I changed it this way:
He had actually requested extended therapy for his client shortly before the incident, as El-Masri claimed he felt threatened and pursued by cars and strangers. He claimed that the arson was executed on impulse, and could not have led to a larger fire. The courts recognized that El-Masri had never breached the law before his CIA abduction, and ruled that he was traumatized, but this did not justify acts of violence. He received a suspended sentence.
I also changed some of the terms (like "file an appeal" instead of "apply for revision", because that is the more correct translation in English.
:: Comment "filing an appeal" and "applying for a revision" are two different things.  The problem here isn't the other-person's knowledge of English, the problem is your knowledge of civil code law (verses anglophonic common law)  Revision "wipes off the record".  Appeal is a quash of a ruling.  Two totally different things altogether. Justice rocks (talk) 20:47, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  El Masri's claims were later substantiated as fact.  Being traumatized from third-party torture is not the same-thing as being mentally-ill.    Justice rocks (talk) 20:49, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating the "Arson incident and legal troubles section" 

message: Recently one of the wikileaks cable that was released relates to discussions between German and American officials over the Al-Masri case, where the US is urging Germany to reconsider its decision to issue arrest warrants for CIA agents that abducted Al-Masri.
http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2007/02/07BERLIN242.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/08/AR2010120806193.html
Could this fit in the frame work of the sources over the United States blocking attempts to investigate into the matter?
--MercZ (talk) 23:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Um, yeah.Justice rocks (talk) 01:45, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikileak Diplomatic Cable

message: This has to be one of the most tragic stories of modern times - this poor mans life was ruined based on mistaken identity.
The supreme irony is, people are directed to "see Khalid al-Masri" by the subtitle of the article. As if still, they're somehow related! How awful. My suggestion is to remove it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.107.68.236 (talk) 07:03, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Totally, this edit is shocking.  I think that the part about the CIA Al Quaeda Director torturing him on a 'hunch' needs to be played up.  How would she like to be tortured on a 'hunch'.  And his name is pretty common.  Masri means "Egyptian".  There are "like, thousands" of Al-Masris and El-Masris.  It's like 'Johnson' in English.Justice rocks (talk) 01:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I wholeheartedly disagree with removing it. Every notable person with similar names includes some way of linking to others, even those with common names. If anything, not putting a mention and link to the actual alleged terrorist on this page will simply make it more likely for people to confuse them. As it is now, it's apparent that they are not the same person. If the subtitle is removed, then it makes it even more likely that the two will be confused as being the same person. Is it tragic and ironic? Absolutely. Should it be removed? Definitely not. 216.165.95.76 (talk) 02:15, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  You want to keep that linkage up on Wikipedia, to add quasi-legitimacy to this monstrous act? B---sh--. All you have to do is quote the CIA official who decided to kidnap, torture and rape the guy based on an incorrect "hunch".  I notice that you don't write your name to back-up your opinion, which drops your credibility a few notches. *Please*. Justice rocks (talk) 19:04, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appropriate subtitle, 'For the person with similar name mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report, see Khalid al-Masri.' 

message: You changed the wording from 'sodomized' to 'sexually assaulted' him.  
The court ruling says sodomized.  Look it up. 193.239.220.249 (talk) 12:00, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  El Masri 

message: Have added content, quotes and cites related to 2012 ruling to establish context and significance - suggest implications for related cases.Parkwells (talk) 17:40, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Added content and quotes on ruling

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: For the sake of greater accuracy and to avoid confusion, "Macedonia" should not be mentioned, but rather North Macedonia as it is now called, or being clear that it refers to the then-called FYROM 134.225.30.13 (talk) 09:22, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Macedonia" 

message: This sentence under "timeline of events" can't be true: "The BND (German intelligence agency) declared on 1 June 2006 that it had known of El-Masri's seizure 16 months before the German government was officially informed in May 2004 of his mistaken arrest." 
16 month before May 2004 was January 2003. El-Masri's was kidnapped in January 2004.--Querstrebe (talk) 23:37, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Impossible assertion