A little-reported story about the U.S. Government’s actions coordinating torture in foreign countries in order to obtain intelligence has turned out to contain a local twist.

The Post is reporting today that the lawyer for a man from Falls Church is alleging his client, who has been held in Saudi Arabia since June 2003, is a participant in a U.S. program to transfer individuals suspected of terrorism to foreign countries to be tortured.

The practice, referred to as “extraordinary rendition,” was first reported at length by the The Times of London in a story published last Sunday. Aside from a brief interview of the Times journalist who broke the story on Pacifica public affairs program Democracy Now! the story has been reported little by American media outlets.

In the local case Salim Ali, the attorney for the detained man Ahmed Abu Ali, has alleged in an affidavit filed Oct. 12 that Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D. Kromberg “smirked and stated that ‘He’s no good for us here, he has no fingernails left,'” when Ali asked Kromberg about petitioning Saudi Arabia to bring his client back to the U.S. to face charges.

The Post reports that “The Saudi government has since indicated that it would consider handing him over to the United States if formally asked to do so by U.S. officials,” and the detained man’s family has asked the U.S. government to do exactly that, however “The Justice Department is seeking to have the family’s petition dismissed.”