CIA Commando Challenges Agency in Court

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A CIA paramilitary officer is filing suit against the spy agency in federal court Friday alleging that the agency is using a baseless war crime allegation to ruin his career.

The complaint by the active-duty commando, identified only as “John Doe” in the filing, does not identify where or when the alleged war crimes took place. It says only that “Doe” was engaged in “offensive operations against individuals designated or viewed as enemies of the United States” when “CIA paramilitary officers were accused of war crimes in an overseas location.”

The CIA’s paramilitary operatives, typically former U.S. Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and Delta Force commandos assigned to the agency’s Special Activities Division, constitute the “tip of the spear” against suspected terrorists in the Middle East, Africa, the Af-Pak border region and elsewhere.

According to John Doe’s Washington, D.C., attorney Mark S. Zaid, the Justice Department investigated and dismissed the war crimes allegation against his client in 2011-2012 without even interviewing him. But the CIA inspector general’s office, Zaid said, launched a “retaliatory and punitive” probe against his client that remains open today.

“They have used the allegations of war crimes to ruin his career,” Zaid said.

Full tale, here.