CIA agents face kidnap trial in Italy

An Italian judge issued arrest warrants on Feb. 16 for 26 suspected CIA operatives for allegedly abducting a radical Muslim cleric outside of his mosque in Milan in February 2003 and delivering him to Egypt, where his lawyer says he was tortured. All of those charged, including the top two CIA officers in Italy at the time, have departed the country, but Italian law allows defendants to be tried in absentia. Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, who was released from prison in Egypt last week, said he had been reduced to a "human wreck" by torture during four years in a Cairo jail. Prosecutors in Milan who were investigating Omar when he disappeared from the city four years ago allege he was flown to Egypt from a US air base in Italy after being snatched by a CIA team aided by Italian intelligence. Judge Caterina Interlandi ruled that the prosecution had made a prima facie case during a preliminary hearing that opened last month and that a full trial should begin on June 8. It will be the world's first trial over the extraordinary rendition program in which suspects are often delivered to countries where torture is common. Among those indicted were the CIA's former Rome and Milan station chiefs, Jeff Castelli and Robert Lady, and then-head of Italian military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari. Other defendants include another 23 suspected CIA operatives and a US Air Force colonel who was serving in Italy when Omar vanished. Omar said he could hardly walk: "They burst my kidneys." He had also lost hearing in one ear. No charges have ever been brought against Omar. The Egyptian court ruled that his four years of detention had been "unfounded." Omar entered Italy illegally in 1997 and was eventually granted political asylum. Under investigation as a suspected terrorist, Italian law enforcement officials said they were about to arrest him when the CIA intervened. Through an attorney, Omar said he was prepared to return to Italy and wanted to sue former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the CIA, following what he described as confinement in a rat-infested cell where guards repeatedly beat him, applied electrical shocks to his body and abused his genitals. "This is an important moment," lead prosecutor Armando Spataro said. He urged the Italian government to press ahead with petitions for extradition of the defendants. It is not clear whether Italy will seek the extradition of the CIA agents, and it is highly unlikely the US government would comply. In fact, it is all but guaranteed that none of them will ever appear in court. Arrest warrants have been issued and apply throughout the European Union. The case has proved embarrassing to Washington because it exposed the highly secretive and extrajudicial practice known as extraordinary rendition. After years of denial, the Bush administration now acknowledges the tactic of seizing suspects and sending them to third countries for interrogation, but it denies sanctioning torture. The alleged complicity of several European governments also has been gradually exposed as prosecutors and independent investigators in Italy, Germany and elsewhere have attempted to build cases against US and European agents who are believed to have detained possibly hundreds of suspects in extraordinary renditions. Alessia Sorgato, a lawyer representing three of the indicted US agents, welcomed the decision to go to trial. "I am happy because finally… we will be able to clarify the role of [the clients] in this matter," she said. It is a sign of the complexity of the case that Sorgato has never met or spoken to her clients. All attorneys representing the US agents were court-appointed, and the CIA and US government have refused to comment publicly on the case or recognize the court's jurisdiction. For evidence, Italian prosecutors have relied heavily on an extensive paper trail left by the CIA operatives as they allegedly planned the seizure of Omar and carried it out. The agents rang up bills totaling tens of thousands of dollars at some of Milan's finest hotels and restaurants and chatted openly on easily traced cellphones. They left behind photocopies of their passports and frequent-flier cards. Although most of the US agents were using aliases, Italian investigators were able to track calls and other contacts to Lady and Castelli, the CIA's top man in Italy. After Omar was kidnapped in broad daylight, his captors bundled him into a van and rushed him to the US-run part of Aviano Air Base in northern Italy. From there, a private jet flew him to Egypt, with a stopover at the US base at Ramstein, Germany. Though the US government will be most concerned about its operatives, Italy is in an uproar over confirmation of the complicity of its own secret services. Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence service until late last year, when he lost his job over the widening scandal, was among those indicted, as was his senior deputy. According to court documents, Pollari has said that Castelli asked for help in apprehending Omar and several other suspects but that he declined. Wiretaps of conversations of his top aides appear to indicate they knew that what they were being asked to do was illegal. Members of Italy's political establishment are at one another's throats over whether the trial should go forward. Francesco Rutelli, deputy prime minister, accused prosecutors of endangering national security by "exposing" the agents and their methods. But Antonio di Pietro, a Cabinet minister and a former star state prosecutor, disagreed: "Secret agents, whether Italian or foreign, can't act like a gang of Sardinian bandits." The European Parliament this week issued a scathing report, the result of a year-long investigation, accusing Italy and 13 other countries of allowing their territory and airspace to be used by the CIA in extraordinary renditions. Charging that governments ignored basic human rights, it documented 1,245 CIA-operated flights in Europe from 2001 to 2005. This week, Switzerland ordered an investigation of the use of its airspace to transport Omar. "In the view of the Federal Council, the use of Swiss airspace for an abduction cannot be tolerated," a government statement said. "There is evidence that basic norms of international law were violated." "Switzerland does not tolerate human rights violations even in the fight against terrorism," it said. Germany also recently ordered the arrest of 13 US agents and others in another suspected CIA abduction; Portugal and Spain are investigating the use of their territory for stopovers by CIA flights involved in renditions; and Canada last month apologized to a Syrian-born citizen it allowed the US to transport to Syria, where he s was tortured.