BERLIN (AP) - Arrest warrants were issued for 13 people in connection with the alleged CIA-orchestrated kidnapping of a German citizen in the agency's extraordinary rendition program, a Munich prosecutor said Wednesday. Prosecutor Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld told The Associated Press that the warrants were issued in the last few days against the 13 alleged kidnappers on suspicion of false imprisonment and serious bodily harm in connection with the abduction of Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent. Al-Masri maintains he was abducted in December 2003 at the Serbian- Macedonian border and flown by the CIA to a detention center in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he says he was abused.
None of the suspects were identified. However, Schmidt-Sommerfeld said in a later statement that "the personal details contained in the arrest warrants are, according to our current knowledge, aliases of CIA agents."
"Further investigation will, among other things, concentrate on trying to determine the clear identities of the suspects," he added.
Germany's NDR television released a list of the names of the 13—11 men and two women—it said its reporters had obtained. It said three had been contacted, but that all had refused comment.
At the State Department, deputy spokesman Tom Casey said the U.S. would review the allegations. "Certainly we will take a look at that information once it is actually made available," he said.
But he declined further comment, referring to a lawsuit by al-Masri against the U.S. government. "I don't think there is really much that we can say given those circumstances," he said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other U.S. officials have declined to address the case. But Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Washington has acknowledged making a mistake with al-Masri.
Al-Masri has said he was released in Albania in May 2004 after the CIA discovered they had the wrong person.
Schmidt-Sommerfeld said prosecutors in December 2005 received a list of people thought to be involved in the kidnapping. The list was compiled by a Spanish journalist from sources within the country's Civil Guard, a paramilitary police unit.
With help from Spanish authorities, they were then able pursue an investigation against "concrete persons," Schmidt-Sommerfeld said.
Investigators also received tips from others, including the Milan prosecutors office and Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who led an inquiry into CIA renditions on behalf of the Council of Europe. Schmidt- Sommerfeld did not elaborate on what the tips were.
The CIA agents are suspected of having flown from the Spanish island of Palma de Mallorca to Macedonia in January 2004 aboard a Boeing 737 to pick up al-Masri, Munich prosecutor August Stern said. Al-Masri had been detained by Macedonian authorities, the prosecutor said.
ARD public television reported that investigators worked from passport photocopies made by a hotel where the suspects stayed. The report gave what it said were the cover names of three men who were pilots and lived in North Carolina.
In October, Munich prosecutors said that based on the list, they were seeking to ban several CIA agents suspected of kidnapping al-Masri from entering German territory. They did not elaborate.
The al-Masri case has been a sore point in otherwise good German-U.S. relations.
The Justice Department has declined to provide Munich prosecutors assistance, citing ongoing legal proceedings in the United States.
Al-Masri has asked a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., to reinstate a lawsuit he filed against the CIA. A lower court dismissed the lawsuit in May, ruling that a trial could harm national security by revealing details about CIA activities.
