ULM, Germany — Khaled el-Masri says his strange and violent trip into the void began with a bus ride on New Year's Eve 2003.
When he returned to this city five months later, his friends didn't believe the odyssey he recounted. Masri said he was kidnapped in Macedonia, beaten by masked men, blindfolded, injected with drugs and flown to Afghanistan, where he was imprisoned and interrogated by U.S. intelligence agents. He said he was finally dumped in the mountains of Albania.
"One person told me not to tell this story because it's so unreal, no one would listen," said Masri, a German citizen who was born in Lebanon.
A Munich prosecutor has launched an investigation and is intent on questioning U.S. officials about the unemployed car salesman's claim that he was wrongly targeted as an Islamic militant. Masri's story, if true, would offer a rare firsthand look at one man's disappearance into a hidden dimension of the Bush administration's war on terrorism.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. authorities have used overseas detention centers and jails to hold or interrogate suspected terrorists, such as at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Many of the estimated 9,000 prisoners in U.S. military custody were captured in Iraq, but others, like Masri, were allegedly picked up in another country and delivered to U.S. authorities in Afghanistan or elsewhere for months of confinement.
A CIA spokesman declined to comment on Masri's case, but White House, Justice Department and CIA officials have long argued that U.S. laws authorize such covert operations. They say U.S. officials have been given assurances in every case that no one is tortured.
"This is not a rogue agency on these issues," said a former senior CIA official who is familiar with the practice. "All these programs have been done under strict supervision, and have saved lives."
The German government is investigating Masri's allegations.
"I have no indication that Masri is not telling the truth," Munich prosecutor Martin Hofmann said in a recent interview. Hair analysis -- which can identify malnourishment and whether someone spent time in a certain part of the world -- suggests that Masri was maltreated and could have been in Afghanistan in early 2004, said his lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic.
"I cannot bring kidnapping charges against a country," Hofmann said. "Decisions now have to be made by higher German authorities. Bearing in mind the politically explosive nature of this case, I still believe it can be handled swiftly."
