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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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February 17th,
2007 - Italy Indicts C.I.A. Operatives in ’03 Abduction |
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Italy Indicts C.I.A.
Operatives in ’03 Abduction By Ian Fisher New York Times February 17, 2007 Rome, Feb. 16 - An Italian
judge indicted 26 Americans on Friday, most of them C.I.A. officers, in what will
become the first trial of the American program of secretly whisking away
terror suspects. Italy’s former top spy was also indicted. Despite the indictment,
issued by a judge in Milan, it is unlikely that any of the Americans, one of
whom is an Air Force colonel, will ever face trial here. The trial is
expected to take place in June. The indictments came in
connection with the case of a radical Egyptian cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama
Nasr. The cleric, known as Abu Omar, disappeared near his mosque in Milan on
Feb. 17, 2003, and said he was kidnapped. He was freed this week from
jail in Egypt, where he says he was taken and tortured. The indictment marked a
turning point in Europe, where anger is high at the American program of
“extraordinary renditions,” an aggressive policy of seizing suspected
terrorists on foreign soil and interrogating them at secret locations in a
third country. Though the Italian
indictment is the first in which such a case was ordered to trial, this week
the Swiss government approved an investigation into the flight that was said
to have carried Mr. Nasr from Italy to Germany, through Swiss airspace. The
flight reportedly then went from an American air base in Germany to Egypt. Late last month, a German
court issued an arrest warrant for 13 people suspected of involvement in the
kidnapping in Macedonia of a German citizen of Lebanese descent. There are
also investigations into extraordinary renditions in Portugal and Spain. In the meantime this week, a
European Union parliamentary committee issued a detailed report into what it
said were “at least” 1,245 secret C.I.A. flights in Europe, some of them
involving extraordinary renditions. The report, which awaits approval by
Parliament, is particularly sensitive because it suggested forcefully that a
number of governments knew of the flights. “We believe there has been
either active collusion by several E.U. governments or turning a blind eye,”
one member of the European Parliament, Baroness Sarah Ludford of Britain,
said this week. All the operatives, who
included the top two C.I.A. officials in Italy at the time, have left the
country. A spokesman for the C.I.A. declined to comment on the indictment,
and an American government official said that no extradition requests had
been received from Italy for those charged. If Italy did seek extradition,
there seems little chance the Bush administration would agree. Here in Italy, the possible
complicity of the government of Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister at the
time, is one of the most difficult issues in the case. Among the Italians
indicted Friday were Nicolo Pollari, who until earlier this year was Italy’s
chief of military intelligence, and his former deputy, Marco Mancini. Mr. Pollari has denied responsibility,
saying he cannot defend himself because he would need to use evidence
classified as state secrets. The suggestion is that officials outranking Mr.
Pollari gave approval for the kidnapping. “We are very disappointed by the
decision of the judge, being convinced that the lack of proof and the
acquisition of documents covered by secrets of state demonstrates Pollari’s
innocence,” Mr. Pollari’s lawyer, Tittal Madia, said, according to the
newspaper Corriere della Sera. The case has snarled Italian
politics with several complications. This week, the government of Prime
Minister Romano Prodi asked the Constitutional Court to review whether the
prosecutor in Mr. Nasr’s case, Armando Spataro, overstepped his bounds by
wiretapping the phones of Italian agents. On Friday, Mr. Spataro said
in a statement that he “astonished” by the government’s move, saying he had
followed all the laws in gathering evidence. Meanwhile, a member of Mr.
Prodi’s government, Antonio Di Pietro, minister of infrastructure and a former
corruption prosecutor, criticized the government for not having requested the
extradition of the officers. Mr. Prodi’s government has
not said whether it will make such requests. But the issue looms as one more
source of conflict between Italy and the United States. While both American and
Italian officials say the relationship remains solid, it has been tested in
recent months on several fronts. A big demonstration is being planned on
Saturday in Vicenza, in northern Italy, where the Americans have asked to
enlarge an existing air base, and Italian officials have recently criticized
American actions in Iraq, Lebanon and Somalia. Earlier this month, an
Italian court ordered an American soldier to stand trial for the death in
Iraq of Nicola Calipari, an Italian secret service agent killed in 2005 while
securing the release of a kidnapped Italian journalist. The soldier is
unlikely to be extradited to Italy. Mark Mazzetti contributed
reporting from Washington. External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/17/world/europe/17CIA.html |