"Goetz earlier said that he had used the material released by WikiLeaks as part of an investigation into claims by Khalid el-Masri, a German citizen who claimed he had been kidnapped from Macedonia, tortured and taken to Afghanistan by the US.

“I had managed to find, through a long and complicated process, the CIA kidnappers who forced him onto an airplane, sodomised him and brought him to Afghanistan,” he told the court.

The Munich state prosecutor issued an order to arrest the CIA agents who had kidnapped and arrested el-Masri.

“What was fascinating about the arrest warrant was that it was never issued to the US when everyone knew that was where the perpetrators lived. I never understood that,” said Goetz.

The diplomatic cables received by WikiLeaks later revealed the extent of the pressure the US brought on the German authorities not to act on the charges."