German police shadowed man before CIA seized him-witness

BERLIN, Sep 21 (Reuters) German police were shadowing Khaled el-Masri and exchanging information on him with US authorities before he was seized by the CIA and taken to Afghanistan, a German federal policeman said today.

The comments by policeman Mario Prikker to a parliamentary committee investigating the Masri affair appeared to raise new questions about the extent of German cooperation with US spies in one of Europe's most controversial ''rendition'' cases.

Masri, a German of Lebanese origin, says he was arrested while in Macedonia on December 31, 2003, handed over to the CIA and flown to Afghanistan where he was imprisoned and tortured.

Germany has said it had nothing to do with his seizure and did not learn about it until May 2004, around the time he was released and dumped in a remote forest in Albania.

If it were proven that German authorities had either participated in or been aware he was grabbed, and failed to intervene, it would be a major embarrassment to the country's top intelligence agency and damage former and current ministers.

The case sparked outrage in Germany and prompted German lawmakers to launch a parliamentary inquiry to find out what German authorities might have known about US ''renditions'' -- abductions and transfers of terror suspects -- which human rights groups say are illegal and may lead to abuse and torture.

At a public session of the committee, Prikker was asked when German authorities began to take an interest in Masri. He said Masri was being watched by the police well before he was seized by the CIA.

''To the best of my recollection it was in 2003,'' said Prikker, an officer with the BKA federal police.

INFORMATION EXCHANGE Prikker said German authorities had become interested in Masri because he was a visitor at the so-called Multi-Kulti Haus, an Islamic centre in the Bavarian town of Neu Ulm, and because he had contact with other people under suspicion.

The Multi-Kulti-Haus was shut down by Bavarian authorities last year for allegedly promoting hatred of Jews and Christians and supporting suicide attacks in Iraq.

Prikker added that U.S. and German authorities had exchanged information about Masri prior to his abduction, but gave no further details.

Prikker appeared to confirm a report by the German news magazine Stern, which quoted an internally circulated BKA email suggesting that Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency may have been complicit in Masri's kidnapping.

The email was quoted as saying that it ''cannot be entirely ruled out that the BND participated in some way in the kidnapping of el-Masri.'' Stern did not name the author.

Prikker was asked if he had written the message and he said: ''This email could have come from me.'' Suspicions that a German security official may have participated in Masri's kidnapping focus on a man who Masri said questioned him during his confinement in Afghanistan, spoke German with a northern accent and called himself ''Sam''.

''It has not been ruled out that Sam was working for one of the German authorities ... (and) that he could have been BND,'' Prikker said. He did not elaborate.

A spokesman for the BND declined to comment. Earlier this year Masri said he believed Sam was a BKA officer, but the BKA denied it.

REUTERS SP BD1938