Former chief of the CIA's European unit says he told Germany of CIA abductions in 200

The former chief of CIA's European unit Taylor Drumheller contradicted claims by German officials who have repeatedly stated that they were not informed of CIA kidnappings of terror suspects until 2004, the weekly stern news magazine said in a report to be published on Thursday.

Drumheller said that talks between top representatives of German security officials and CIA took place, focusing on US plans to kidnap terror suspects as early as fall 2001.

The German side voiced concern that the US would engage unilaterally in such abductions on European soil without its knowledge, said Drumheller, adding that the CIA had pledged to include US allies in such operations.

The former head of the chancellery Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the ex-secret services coordinator Ernst Uhrlau have alleged that they were not briefed on US kidnapping plans until 2004.

Drumheller also claimed that he met personally with Uhrlau at the chancellery.

Steinmeier and Uhrlau are to attend a secret parliamentary hearing on their role in the CIA kidnappings of Lebanese-born German citizen in December 2003.

Khaled al-Masri as kidnapped by CIA agents in the Macedonian capital Skopje on New Year's eve 2003 and flown to a jail in Afghanistan where he was interrogated, beaten and brutally tortured during a five-month ordeal.

Al-Masri was freed in Albania in May 2004 after the CIA found out that they had abducted the wrong person.

The Al-Masri case has been a sore point in US-German ties and led to a special parliamentary probe on allegations German intelligence agents were involved in the kidnapping affair.

German judicial authorities have repeatedly criticized the refusal of the US government to cooperate in the Al-Masri scandal.

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