On December 31, 2003, I boarded a bus in Ulm, Germany, for a holiday in Skopje, Macedonia. When the bus crossed the border, Macedonian officials confiscated my passport and detained me for several hours. Eventually, I was transferred to a hotel, where I was held for 23days.

I was guarded at all times, the curtains were always drawn, I was never permitted to leave the room, I was threatened with guns, and I was not allowed to contact anyone. At the hotel, I was repeatedly questioned about my activities in Ulm, my associates, my mosque, meetings with people that had never occurred, or associations with people I had never met. I answered all of their questions truthfully, emphatically denying their accusations. After 13 days I went on a hunger strike to protest my confinement.

On January 23, 2004, I was handcuffed, blindfolded, and placed in a car. The car eventually stopped and I heard aeroplanes. I was taken from the car and led to a building where I was severely beaten. Someone sliced the clothes off my body, and when I would not remove my underwear, I was beaten again until someone forcibly removed it from me. I was thrown on the floor, my hands were pulled behind me, and someone's boot was placed on my back. Then I felt something firm being forced inside my anus.

I was dragged across the floor and my blindfold was removed. I saw seven or eight men dressed in black and wearing black ski masks. One of the men placed me in a diaper and a tracksuit. I was put in a belt with chains that attached to my wrists and ankles, earmuffs were placed over my ears, eye pads over my eyes, and then I was blindfolded and hooded. In the plane, I was thrown to the floor face down, and my legs and arms were spread-eagled and secured to the sides of the plane. I felt two injections, and I was rendered nearly unconscious. At some point, I felt the plane land and take off again. When it landed again, I was unchained and taken off the plane. It felt very warm outside, and so I knew I had not been returned to Germany. I later learned that I was in Afghanistan.

Once off the plane, I was shoved into the back of a vehicle. After a short drive, I was dragged out of the car, pushed roughly into a building, and left in a small, dirty, cold concrete cell. That first night I was interrogated by six or eight men dressed in the same black clothing and ski masks, as well as a masked American doctor and a translator. They stripped me, photographed me and took blood and urine samples. I was returned to my cell, where I would remain in solitary confinement, with no reading or writing materials, and without once being permitted outside to breathe fresh air, for more than four months.

During this time, I was interrogated three or four times, always by the same man, with others who were dressed in black clothing and ski masks, and always at night. The man who interrogated me asked about whether I had taken a trip to Jalalabad using a false passport, whether I had attended Palestinian training camps and whether I knew the September 11 conspirators or other alleged extremists. As in Macedonia, I truthfully denied his accusations. Two men who participated in my interrogations identified themselves as Americans. My requests to meet with a representative of the German government or a lawyer, or to be brought before a court, were ignored.

In March, along with several other inmates, I commenced a hunger strike to protest our confinement without charges. After 27 days without food, I was allowed to meet with two unmasked Americans, the prison director and an even higher official whom other inmates referred to as "the boss". I pleaded with them either to release me or to bring me to court. The American prison director replied that he could not release me without permission from Washington, but said that I should not be detained in the prison. On day 37 of my hunger strike, I was dragged into an interrogation room, tied to a chair, and a feeding tube was forced through my nose to my stomach. After the force-feeding, I became extremely ill and suffered the worst pain of my life.

Near the beginning of May, I was brought into an interrogation room to meet an American who identified himself as a psychologist. He told me he had travelled from Washington to check on me, and promised I would soon be released. Soon thereafter I was interrogated again by a native German speaker named "Sam", the American prison director and an American translator. I was warned at one point that, as a condition of my release, I was never to mention what had happened to me, because the Americans were determined to keep the affair a secret.

On May 28, I was led out of my cell, blindfolded and handcuffed.

I was put on a plane and chained to the seat. I was accompanied by Sam and also heard the voices of two or three Americans. Sam informed me that the plane would land in a European country other than Germany, because the Americans did not want to leave clear traces of their involvement in my ordeal, but that I would eventually continue on to Germany. I believed I would be executed rather than returned home.

When the plane landed, I was placed in a car, still blindfolded, and driven up and down mountains for hours. Eventually, I was removed from the car and my blindfold removed. My captors gave me my passport and belongings, sliced off my handcuffs and told me to walk down a dark, deserted road and not to look back. I believed I would be shot in the back and left to die, but when I turned the bend, there were armed men who asked me why I was in Albania and took my passport. They took me to the airport, and only when the plane took off did I believe I was actually returning to Germany. When I returned I had long hair and a beard, and had lost 18 kilos. My wife and children had left our house in Ulm, believing I had left them and was not coming back. Now we are together again in Germany.

I'm filing this lawsuit because I believe in the American system of justice. What happened to me was outside the bounds of any legal framework and should never be allowed to happen to anyone else. Ultimately, what I would like from this lawsuit is an acknowledgment that the CIA is responsible for what happened to me, an explanation as to why this happened, and an apology.

From a statement made to the American Civil Liberties Union in December by Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen who was abducted and detained in Macedonia and Afghanistan from December 31, 2003, to May 28, 2004. The ACLU is charging that former CIA director George Tenet acted illegally by authorising agents to abduct El-Masri, beat him, drug him and transport him to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan.