Cleric details CIA abduction, Egyptian torture

Electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse are among the types of torture alleged by an Egyptian prisoner at the center of Europe's biggest CIA "rendition" case. The torture claims are the darkest chapter in the so-called rendition of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a terrorism suspect who prosecutors say was grabbed off a Milan street in 2003, driven to a US airbase and then flown to Egypt. An 11-page handwritten note from Nasr detailing his accusations of abuse has been added this week to the evidence being used by Italian prosecutors looking to indict US and Italian agents. "In the beginning, the guards took off all of my clothes, threatened to rape me, gave me shocks with an electric wand. One had my private parts and he squeezed them if I didn't speak," Nasr wrote, according to excerpts published in Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, mentioned nicknames guards used for their instruments of torture, like "The Bride" and "The Mattress." "They stretched me out on a iron door that they call 'The Bride.' Here I got kicked, electric shock... meanwhile they threw cold water at me," he wrote. "The Mattress" was equally brutal, according to the account. Hands and feet bound, Nasr sat on a soaking wet mattress that was rigged to an electric current. One torturer would perch on top of him in a wooden chair while the other applied the shocks. In his letter, Nasr described how his health had badly deteriorated. He had lost hearing in one ear from repeated beatings, he said, and his formerly pitch-black hair had turned all white. He was questioned about his life outside Egypt and shown pictures of fellow Egyptians and other North Africans living in Italy. "The questioning lasted seven months, until Sept. 14, 2003, but it seemed like seven years," he wrote, according to the Milan-based daily. "When I asked for the bathroom, I was told it was my cell," Nasr reportedly wrote in the document. "The cell was airless, beetles and rats crawled on my body." "I was always scared and often passed out," he said. "I didn't understand anything about what was going on," Nasr wrote. "They began to punch me in the stomach and all over my body. They wrapped my entire head and face with wide tape, and cut holes over my nose and face so I could breathe." The US government acknowledges secret transfers of terrorism suspects to third countries, but denies torturing suspects or handing them to countries that do. The Milan public prosecutor's office confirmed the authenticity of the letter, which has been submitted as evidence to defense attorneys representing 25 CIA officers, a US Air Force officer and nine Italian agents who have been charged with organizing the kidnapping of Nasr, an Egyptian national, in February 2003. Prosecutors have already issued preventative arrest warrants against the US suspects. Italian judges have pledged to try them in absentia if necessary. It would be the first criminal prosecution anywhere in the world for "renditions," one of the most controversial aspects of President Bush's global "war on terrorism." Italian prosecutors charge that the CIA and the Italian military intelligence agency known as Sismi collaborated to kidnap Nasr, who was known for preaching radical sermons in Milan and railing against US policies in Afghanistan and the Middle East. According to prosecutors, the abduction thwarted a separate Italian police investigation into Nasr's activities and jeopardized a surveillance operation concerning other radicals in Milan. Court papers allege that the kidnapping was orchestrated by the CIA's station chief in Rome and involved at least two dozen CIA operatives, most of whom arrived in Italy months before to lay the groundwork.