The CIA kidnap and torture victim Khalid El-Masri has lost an appeal to have his case tried in U.S. court. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court said it would not take up El-Masri’s appeal of two lower court rulings rejecting his case. The Bush administration had invoked the so-called “state secrets” privilege to deny Masri a trial. Masri was seized in Macedonia and flown to Afghanistan, where he was held in a secret prison and tortured. In December 2005, two years after his abduction, Masri described his ordeal.

Khalid El-Masri: “They took me to a room. I had handcuffs, and I had a blindfold. And when the door was closed, I was beaten from all sides. I was hit from all sides. I then was humiliated, and I could hear that I was being photographed in the process when I was completely naked. Then my hands were tied to my back. I got a blindfold, and they put chains onto my ankles and a sack over my head, and just like the pictures we have seen from Guantánamo, for example.”

Masri was committed to a German psychiatric facility earlier this year following an arrest on arson charges. Attorneys say his kidnapping and torture has left him a “psychological wreck.” The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up Masri’s case in the United States. Reacting to the Supreme Court denial, ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner said: “The Court has provided the government with complete immunity for its shameful human rights and due process violations.”