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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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March 19th,
2008 - CIA Kidnapping Trial Resumes in Italy |
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CIA Kidnapping Trial Resumes
in Italy By Agence France Presse March 19, 2008 Rome - A Milan court on
Wednesday resumed the "CIA-gate" trial of 26 US citizens accused in
the February 2003 CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian imam in the northern city, a
court-appointed lawyer said. Judge Oscar Magi had
suspended the trial last June to allow the Constitutional Court to deliberate
over whether Milan investigators had violated state secrecy laws by
wiretapping military intelligence agents. Since the government and
Milan prosecutors agreed in January to try to settle the issue without
recourse to Italy's highest court, Magi decided Wednesday the abduction trial
could resume, lawyer Alessia Sorgato told AFP. The two sides will hold
talks on July 8 and could agree on documents to be removed from the body of
evidence in the case dubbed "CIA-gate" by the Italian press,
Sorgato said. Osama Mustafa Hassan, an
imam better known as Abu Omar, was snatched from a Milan street on February
17, 2003, in an operation coordinated by the CIA and Italian military
intelligence. Abu Omar was transferred to
a high-security prison outside Cairo, where he was held for four years. After
his release in February 2007, he told of torture and humiliation during his
incarceration such as being forced to defecate on the floor of his cell. The trial is the first in
Europe over the CIA's so-called "extraordinary rendition" programme
under which it has secretly transferred terror suspects to third countries
known to practise torture. Abu Omar's seizure was
thought to be among scores of secret abductions around the world since the
attacks of September 11, 2001. Wednesday's hearing was
devoted to preliminary and procedural questions and the trial was adjourned
to April 16, Sorgato said, adding that Magi set five further hearings in May
through July and four more in September. The judge may order that the
hearings be held behind closed doors, Sorgato said. She is representing three of
the 26 American defendants - 25 CIA agents and a US air force colonel - who
are being tried in absentia. The trial involves another
seven Italian defendants including General Nicolo Pollari, the head of
military intelligence, who was forced to resign over the affair. Among the Americans are the
former CIA Milan station chief Robert Seldon Lady, the Rome CIA station chief
Jeffrey Castelli and US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Romano, who was
stationed at the Aviano air base in northeastern Italy at the time. The Italian government has
refused to seek the extradition of the 26 Americans requested by the Milan
prosecutors. Copyright © 2008 AFP. All
rights reserved. External link: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j6H0zRWgPPnzoIB7moQ3-bZW1oAw |