Ooops!

The German government was told by the US Ambassador that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him.

He was held 5 months (and allegedly tortured) because the head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center's al Qaeda unit "believed he was someone else," one former CIA official said. "She didn't really know. She just had a hunch". Some hunch, I'd say!

[fascinating details can be read in the Washignton Post]

No doubt this will come up during the meeting between Rice and Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday in Berlin.

Note: Apparently the "wrongful abduction of innocent people" has happened before : one detainee turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said to the Washignton Post.
Wow.. I'd better think twice about giving my students bad grades from now on - teaching is becoming an increasingly dangerous job and a sensitive one too for the CIA!