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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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March 17th,
2007 - Italy Renews Effort to Stop Abduction Trial Targeting CIA Operatives |
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Italy Renews Effort to Stop Abduction
Trial Targeting CIA Operatives Officials raise concerns on use of state secrets By Christine Spolar Chicago Tribune March 17, 2007 Rome - For the second time
in just over a month, the Italian government has asked a top court to stop a
pending trial of 26 Americans, most of them CIA agents, in a case that could
provide the first public examination of a secret U.S. program that targeted
alleged terror suspects from foreign lands. The State Committee of
Lawyers, a government advisory board, was asked to review the procedures that
led to indictments handed down last month in connection with the abduction
from Milan of a radical cleric named Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as
Abu Omar. The government sent its
request Thursday to the committee, which will pass on its review to the
Constitutional Court. The trial is set to begin June 8. Pietro de Angelis, a
spokesman from the Justice Ministry, said Friday that the court would be
asked to look at whether state secrets were breached by the investigation. The request is focused on
whether the judge who issued the indictments allowed the airing of state
secrets. A similar request was made
by the government, headed by Prime Minister Romano Prodi, in February. At
that time, the government asked the lawyers' committee to focus on whether
Milan prosecutors Armando Spataro and Ferdinando Pomarici wrongly used
sensitive documents and tapped phone conversations of Italian intelligence
agents in their pursuit of the suspects. Sources close to the
prosecution assert the government wants to avoid an examination of how Italy
cooperated with the United States' war on terror. Attempts to indict some of
the same Americans on charges related to the cleric failed while former Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a staunch U.S. ally during the run-up to the war
in Iraq, was in office. Information about how and
why Italian intelligence agencies worked with the CIA could be politically
embarrassing and troubling in Italy, where opposition to the U.S.-backed war
in Iraq has grown over time. The indictments of the
Americans, including the top two CIA officials in Italy at the time and an
Air Force colonel, were the first of several in Europe, which has roiled with
protests over a secret CIA campaign to pursue terror suspects. Suspects were allegedly
captured or abducted by agents working for or with the U.S. agency and then
flown to a third country for interrogation. Some suspects say they were
tortured. The secret flights were
targeted by European Union investigators who have been unsuccessful in their
efforts to question or contest the Bush administration's so-called renditions
of suspects. Beyond Italy, investigations
are under way in Switzerland, Germany, Portugal and Spain over the alleged
disappearance of suspects tied to the U.S. war on terror. In the case from Italy, Abu
Omar went missing near a mosque in Milan in 2003. Witnesses described a
kidnapping in broad daylight. Abu Omar later said he was whisked off the
street by Western men, bundled into a van, then flown to a military facility
somewhere in Europe and later transferred to an Egyptian prison. Abu Omar, now free and
living in Egypt, has said he was held, interrogated and tortured while in
prison in Egypt. In a television broadcast this week in Italy, he alleged
that he also was sexually abused in prison. His case is considered one
of the most highly publicized examples of how the Bush administration relied
on third countries for interrogations that allegedly did not meet U.S.
judicial standards. All the Americans charged in
connection with the abduction soon left the country and would be tried in
absentia. The CIA has declined to comment on the prospective trial, and the
State Department has said the U.S. would refuse to extradite any CIA officers
if Italy requested it. Prosecutors in Milan have
built their case based on extensive depositions of Italian agents, phone
records of those agents and research on the relationship between Italian
intelligence operatives and the CIA. Also indicted with the
Americans were two top Italian intelligence officials: Nicolo Pollari, a
former chief of military intelligence, and his former deputy, Marco Mancini. External link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703170110mar17,1,2773150.story |