Qaeda leader may have been held in Germany -lawyers

LONDON, Oct 6 (Reuters) New evidence has emerged that high-profile al Qaeda prisoners may have been secretly held at a US base in Germany, a British legal charity representing US detainees said today.

The charity Reprieve said the information came from detainees it represents at the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

It said a British-based prisoner there, Binyam Mohamed, said he was told by Moroccan interrogators in 2003 or early 2004 that senior al Qaeda figure Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been held for interrogation at a US prison at an airforce base in Germany.

Mohammed, known as KSM, is the alleged mastermind of the September. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

Another Guantanamo detainee, Hassan bin Attash, said he was told by Jordanian interrogators that his brother Waleed Tawfiq bin Attash was also being held at a US base in Germany.

And a third man, Shaker Aamer, said he had changed planes at a German base while being transferred by the United States from Afghanistan to Guantanamo in 2002.

The Reprieve published the information today, two days after holding a meeting in London with European Parliament members investigating alleged US secret transfers of terrorist suspects, known as renditions.

''We call upon the German government to order an independent investigation,'' Reprieve legal director Clive Stafford Smith said in a statement.

European Parliament members were expected to discuss the allegations at a news conference today.

In a report in June, Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty identified the U.S. airbase at Ramstein, Germany, as one of seven international ''staging points'' where US planes and crews prepared for secret transfer flights, which have drawn strong international criticism.

TORTURE CLAIMS DENIED Italian and German prosecutors believe an Egyptian cleric known as Abu Omar was flown home via Ramstein in 2003 after being abducted by a CIA team in Milan, a case in which Italian officials have issued arrest warrants for 26 Americans.

Any evidence that other captives were also transferred via Ramstein could embarrass authorities in Germany, where a parliamentary inquiry is investigating aspects of German cooperation with the United States in the war on terrorism.

The United States has acknowledged using renditions as a tool in the war on terrorism but strongly denies its critics' charge that it has deliberately handed over prisoners for interrogation in countries that practise torture.

President George W Bush acknowledged last month that the Central Intelligence Agency had interrogated dozens of terrorism suspects at secret overseas locations, saying intelligence gained from them had prevented terrorist attacks.

Washington says it is not currently holding any detainees at secret prisons, and has not said where such facilities are situated.

The European Parliament launched its investigation after reports late last year that the United States had run secret prisons in Eastern Europe.

REUTERS SHB PM1543