SpyTalk

"There's no doubt that Darkazanli harbored sympathies for al Qaeda, as many Muslims did before 9/11," says Robert Baer, the former CIA counterterror operative whose work in the Middle East inspired the 2005 movie, Syriana,

"But there was never any evidence he was aware of 9/11 in its planning stages or consciously provided material support to the attack. He was only guilty of having bad thoughts, as far as I've seen."

The CIA does not, of course, comment on its spies.

Darkazanli's "bad thoughts," and perhaps more - he hung out with three of the 9/11 hijackers in Hamburg - landed him on the Treasury Department's freeze list right after Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

He was called "Osama Bin Laden's financier."

But the U.S. has not asked for the arrest or extradition of Darkazanli, 50, in connection with 9/11 or other terror attacks in American citizens.

German police also let Darkazanli walk after questioning him about his connections to the 9/11 hijackers.

In 2004, however, Spanish authorities charged the Damascus-born Syrian German with involvement in the Madrid train bombings, and asked Berlin to extradite him for trial.

This time, Darkazanli, a member of the radical Muslim Brotherhood for most of his adult life, was jailed.

But he was released after only nine months, when a German court declared that the arrest warrant issued by the European Union violated Germany's constitution.

He walked, again, and remains free in Germany, where "The Wanted" program's crew pursued him.

"The whole story is strange," says Thomas Joscelyn, a counterterrorism analyst who explored Darkazanli's odd odyssey in a blog for The Weekly Standard this week.

"I'm sure Darkazanli is being monitored (as was shown on the show last night), but he should still be brought to justice."

Baer, who pursued terrorists across the Middle East and Western Europe, wonders how  Darkazanli could have worked on the Madrid bombing while being closely watched.

"I'd find it hard to believe he did it right under the nose of the Germans after 9/11, but who knows?"

As even the star of "The Wanted," former Special Forces colonel Roger Carstens, noted, "multiple foreign intelligence services have him under surveillance."

Carstens also wondered aloud how Darkazanli was staying out of the clutches of Spain.

"Usually something bizarre like this only happens," he said, "when an intelligence agency is protecting someone."