Berlin: Khaled El-Masri, a German national of Lebanese descent who was held by the CIA in Afghanistan, attacked the mayor of a southern German town on Friday.
Police said El-Masri, 46, stormed into the office of Neu-Ulm Mayor Gerold Noerenberg and attacked him, inflicting unspecified injuries, which required medical treatment.
Half-an-hour earlier, El-Masri had been ejected from the building after being refused access to the Mayor's office. He was arrested after the attack.
El-Masri spent time in a psychiatric clinic after setting fire to a market in Neu-Ulm in January 2007. He was later given a two-year suspended sentence for arson.
In 2004, El-Masri was seized by the CIA in Skopje, Macedonia, and transferred to Afghanistan where he spent nearly six months undergoing interrogation. After his return to Germany, prosecutors in Munich issued a series of arrest warrants against CIA agents.
El-Masri took legal action in the US to find out why he had been kidnapped, but a US court dismissed the action in October 2007.
IANS
First Published: Friday, September 11, 2009, 20:53