Italian Payback for Extraordinary Rendition and Segrena/Calipari Betrayal
ROME - An Italian judge on Friday ordered the arrests of 13 CIA
officers for secretly transporting a Muslim preacher from Italy to
Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts — a rare public objection
to the practice by a close American ally.
The Egyptian was spirited away in 2003, purportedly as part of the
CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program in which terror suspects are
transferred to third countries without court approval, subjecting them
to possible torture.
The arrest warrants were announced Friday by the Milan prosecutor's
office, which has called the disappearance a kidnapping and a blow to a
terrorism investigation in Italy. The office said the imam was believed
to belong to an Islamic terrorist group.
The 13 are accused of seizing Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as
Abu Omar, on a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003, and sending him to Egypt,
where he reportedly was tortured, Milan prosecutor Manlio Claudio
Minale said in a statement.
The U.S. Embassy in Rome and the CIA in Washington declined to comment.
The prosecutor's statement did not name the suspects, give their
nationalities or mention the CIA by name. But an Italian official
familiar with the investigation confirmed newspaper reports Friday that
the suspects worked for the CIA.
The official also said there was no evidence Italians were involved
or knew about the operation. He asked that his name not be used because
official comment was limited to the prosecutor's statement.
Minale said the suspects remain at large and Italian authorities
will ask the United States and Egypt for assistance in the case.
The prosecutor's office said Nasr was released by the Egyptians after his interrogation but was arrested again later.
The statement said Nasr was seized by two people as he was walking
from his home toward a mosque and bundled into a white van. He was
taken to Aviano, a joint U.S.-Italian base north of Venice, and flown
to a U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany, before being taken to Cairo.
It said investigators had confirmed the abduction through an
eyewitness account and other, unidentified witnesses as well as through
an analysis of cell phone traffic.
In March 2003, "U.S. authorities" told Italian police Nasr had been
taken to the Balkans, the statement said. A year later, in April-May
2004, Nasr phoned his wife and another unidentified Egyptian citizen
and told them he had been subjected to violent treatment by
interrogators in Egypt, the statement said.
Italian newspapers have reported that Nasr, 42, said in the wiretapped calls that he was tortured with electric shocks.
On Friday, the Milan daily Corriere della Sera cited another
Milan-based imam as telling Italian authorities Nasr was tortured after
refusing to work in Italy as an informer. According to the testimony,
he was hanged upside down and subjected to extreme temperatures and
loud noise that damaged his hearing, Corriere reported.
Minale said the judge rejected a request for six more arrest
warrants for suspects believed to have helped prepare the operation. Judge Chiara Nobile ordered the arrests after investigators traced
the agents through Milan hotels and Italian cell phones, said reports
in Corriere and another daily, Il Giorno. Il Giorno said all the agents were American and three were women.
Minale said a judge also issued a separate arrest warrant for Nasr
on terrorism charges. In that warrant, Judge Guido Salvini said Nasr's
seizure violated Italian sovereignty, according to Italian news agency
Apcom.
Nasr was believed to have fought in Afghanistan
and Bosnia and prosecutors were seeking evidence against him before his
disappearance, according to a report in La Repubblica newspaper, which
cited intelligence officials.
Corriere said Italian police picked up details, including cover
names, photos, credit card information and U.S. addresses the agents
gave to five-star hotels in Milan around the time of Nasr's alleged
abduction. It said investigators also found the prepaid highway passes
the agents used for the journey from Milan to the air base.
The report said investigations showed the agents incurred
$144,984 in hotel bills in Milan, and that two pairs of agents took
holidays in northern Italy after delivering Nasr to Aviano.
Italian-U.S. relations were strained after American soldiers killed an
Italian intelligence agent near Baghdad airport in March. He was
escorting a kidnapped Italian journalist after he had secured her
release from Iraqi captors.
Germano Dottori, a political analyst at the Center for
Strategic Studies in Rome, said it is not unusual for intelligence
agencies to have squabbles with allied countries but that he could not
recall prosecutors directly involved in investigating or apprehending
agents involved.
"At some point the Americans will begin to think they can't trust the Italians," Dottori said.
Well, extraordinary rendition from the US is a-ok with Abu Gonzales,
but it looks like Italy doesn't much like it from their soil.
Cell phone usage was mentioned. So it's probable that the agents used
their cover names while on the phone with each other, suggesting their
conversations were being monitored by the Italians, and further
suggesting the possibility of a strong case against them. Hopefully,
the Italians are taking a firm stand over the kidnapping in the pure
interest of upholding law and order for everyone. It would be so
refreshing to know that the law still means something somewhere and
that "Texas cancer" hasn't engulfed the entire world yet.
"At some point the Americans will begin to think they can't trust the Italians," Dottori said.
But isn't it maybe about time the U.S. started worrying about the fact that the Italians, along with a number of others, already evidently no longer trust the Americans?
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart
people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." -
Mark Twain
Has
a post with details from various stories of this incident. Read
all three stories to get the full picture. Each one has details
the others don't, and you need to read them all to get a feel for
what's going on. Nobody expects any of the CIA officers to be turned
over to the Italians, of course, but the big question still remaining
is what happens next: will the Italians treat this like a shot across
the bow and let the case die out, or will they use it to embarrass the
American government as fully as they can? Stay tuned.
Besides, you get to live kinda fine on the public dime for torturin' people:
In hotel bills alone, the group ran up a tab of $150,000, the court papers indicate.
... Once the rendition was completed, several of the agents traveled to
Venice for a celebration, also at a luxurious five-star hotel, the
court papers say. Four others took a vacation along the picturesque
Mediterranean coast north of Tuscany.
Is this a great country or what! The first rule of covert operations: The agent can't pretend he is James Bond while staying at Motel 6.
