Trial over 'CIA-led' kidnapping of Egyptian cleric to continue, Italian judge rules

The trial of 26 Americans and seven Italians accused of orchestrating the CIA-led kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric will continue despite an Italian supreme court ruling that barred key evidence as classifed, a judge ruled today. The two-year trial is the first to be held by any government over the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" programme of transferring suspects overseas for interrogation. Human rights lawyers said renditions were the agency's way of outsourcing the torture of prisoners to countries in which it is permitted practice. Successive Italian governments have denied any involvement in the 17 February 2003 abduction of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who was abducted from a Milan street in daylight. Prosecutors say Nasr was then transported in a van to the Aviano Air Force base, from where he was flown to the Ramstein Air Base, in southern Germany, and then to Egypt, where he was held and said he was tortured. He has since been released without charge. Last month, the Italian constitutional court ruled that evidence pertaining to the allegedly CIA-run kidnapping was considered classified and was therefore inadmissible. Defence lawyers for the Americans,who are mostly CIA agents, and Italians argued that the exclusion of the evidence made it impossible to continue with the trial. The prosecution argued the indictments were still valid and the trial should go on. At a hearing in Milan, Judge Oscar Magi announced that the politically sensitive trial could continue next week. "All of the defence motions that sought to block the trial were rejected," the prosecutor, Armando Spataro, said. Spataro said certain evidence would have to be "surgically removed from the trial" and that he would now set a new strategy. As part of his ruling, the judge blocked the testimony of the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, his predecessor, Romano Prodi, and other former officials because their statements would have fallen within the confines of classified information. The witnesses were being called by the defence for Nicoló Pollari, the former head of the military intelligence, to "refer to circumstances that demonstrate incontrovertibly that Pollari had nothing to do with the presumed kidnapping," lawyer Nicola Madia said. The American defendants are being tried in absentia. All have court-appointed lawyers who have had no contact with their clients. The CIA has refused to comment on the case.