CIA Rendition "Ghost Pilots" Found

[Doug]

Pilots traced to CIA renditions
The Times identifies three fliers facing kidnapping charges in Germany related to a 2003 counter-terrorism mission.
By Bob Drogin and John Goetz, Special to The Times
February 18, 2007


CLAYTON, N.C. — The forecast called for heavy snow on the route home, so the three pilots who had just flown a covert CIA-sponsored "extraordinary rendition" flight were forced to stay an extra night at the Gran Melia Victoria, a luxury hotel overlooking the marina on the island of Majorca.

Up in Room 552, the pilot who called himself Capt. James Fairing picked up the phone at 2:28 in the afternoon and dialed his tree-shaded home in a subdivision carved out of pine forests here in Clayton, about 15 miles southeast of Raleigh. He also called his employer, a North Carolina-based air charter service that long has worked for the CIA.

Fairing's copilot, who registered as Eric Matthew Fain, reached for the phone in his room and called a woman back home with whom he owns a 22-foot speedboat and who also flies missions for the CIA. The third pilot from the stranded flight carried a U.S. passport issued to Kirk James Bird. The passport photo shows a balding, middle-age man with a broad smile.

The names they used were all aliases, but The Times confirmed their real identities from government databases and visited their homes this month after a German court in January ordered the arrest of the three "ghost pilots" and 10 other alleged members of the CIA's special renditions unit on charges of kidnapping and causing serious bodily harm to Khaled Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, three years ago.

None of the pilots responded to repeated requests for comment left with family members and on their home telephones. The Times is not publishing their real names because they have been charged only under their aliases.

...According to Masri's account, he was detained by local authorities while crossing from Serbia into Macedonia on Dec. 31, 2003. Three weeks later, seven or eight men in masks stripped him naked, put him in a diaper and jumpsuit, drugged him and then chained him, spread-eagle and blindfolded, to the floor of a Boeing 737 that flew to Afghanistan on Jan. 24, 2004. German prosecutors say the men in masks were with the CIA rendition team...

See here.

[LaWood]

Not sure about the Italians or Germans but the French
when they are fed-up have been known to use like-kind
methods to extract justice.
So what does the USA do when a foreign gov yanks
the accused off our streets and transports them to
foreign nations to stand trial? Negotiate?

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

We'll get WWIII yet - and be on the wrong side of it. Official protests haven't worked any more than they did with Hitler. Now those "just following orders" are being arrested and tried. If we are very, very lucky, all that will happen is BushCo will also be arrested an tried.

[ChristianLoeschel]

Hah yeah I remember that story quite well. The guy had a fight with his wife and got on a bus to macedonia for some quiet alone time on the beach (maybe some beach bunnies who knows), and they scoop him up, torture him for months and months and then just drop him back off in Germany going "OOPS Wrong guy". The German government was called up by some lowly secretary somewhere in Washington with a half-assed "Sorry we kidnapped your citizen" and that was that.

Of course the diplomatic consequences of any German retaliation would be immense...so I would suggest making a good ole example of these 3 guys ala Putinesque Polonium injection maybe?

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Considering how many Americans - troops, tourists, business folks - are in Germany at any given time, I'd say the Germans are being very restrained. In fact, they are doing what we should have done after 9/11 - arresting the ones responsible and going through the court system.