BERLIN, June 1: Germany’s scandal-plagued spy agency admitted on Thursday that one of its staff knew but did not report that a German citizen had been seized abroad and handed to the CIA as a terrorist suspect.

The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the foreign intelligence agency, has always maintained it first learned in May 2004 of the arrest of Lebanese-born Khaled El-Masri in Macedonia.

But it now says one of its officials in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, was informed of the arrest in Jan 2004 but failed to report the information.

“A person unknown to him casually mentioned that a German citizen by the name of Masri had been arrested at Skopje airport and that he had seen him on a missing persons’ list,” said a statement from the BND.

“Because the official was there for a completely different reason and the name Masri meant nothing to him, he saw no reason to pass on this information.”

Mr Masri was held by the United States for months in a jail in Afghanistan before being dumped on the side of a road in Albania.

“The information breakdown within the service will be thoroughly investigated with all those involved in order to prevent any repetition,” the statement added.

The new information comes as a German parliamentary investigation prepares to question Mr Masri about his ordeal.

A US court last month dismissed Mr Masri’s lawsuit against the CIA on the basis of ‘state secrets’ privilege, in other words that such a case would disclose secret information crucial to US security.—AFP