CIA agents tortured a German citizen, sodomising, shackling, and beating him, as Macedonian state police looked on, the European court of human rights said in a historic judgment released on Thursday.

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“The grand chamber of the European court of human rights unanimously found that Mr el-Masri was subjected to forced disappearance, unlawful detention, extraordinary rendition outside any judicial process, and inhuman and degrading treatment” ….

“Masri’s treatment at Skopje airport at the hands of the CIA rendition team – being severely beaten, sodomised, shackled and hooded, and subjected to total sensory deprivation – had been carried out in the presence of state officials of [Macedonia] and within its jurisdiction,” the court ruled.

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UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson, described the ruling as “a
key milestone in the long struggle to secure accountability of public
officials implicated in human rights violations committed by the Bush
administration CIA in its policy of secret detention, rendition and
torture“.

He said the US government must issue an apology for its “central role in a web of systematic crimes and human rights violations by the Bush-era CIA, and to pay voluntary compensation to Mr el-Masri”.

The Senate intelligence committee approved a long-awaited
report Thursday concluding that harsh interrogation measures used by
the CIA did not produce significant intelligence breakthroughs,
officials said.

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Officials familiar with the report said it makes a detailed case that
subjecting prisoners to ­“enhanced” interrogation techniques did not
help the CIA find Osama bin Laden and often were counterproductive in
the broader campaign against al-Qaeda.

The committee chairman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein ­(D-Calif.), declined
to discuss specific findings but released a written statement describing
decisions to allow the CIA to build a network of secret prisons and
employ harsh interrogation measures as “terrible mistakes.”

“I also believe this report will settle the debate once and for all
over whether our nation should ever employ coercive interrogation
techniques,” Feinstein said.