|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
|
May 19th,
2009 - Trial of CIA, Italian Agents Provides Rare Look at Intelligence Work |
|
Trial of CIA, Italian Agents
Provides Rare Look at Intelligence Work Testimony about the alleged ‘rendition’ of Egyptian Abu Omar features
feuds and rogue conduct in a case that has apparently made and crushed
careers. By Sebastian Rotella Los Angeles Times May 19, 2009 Reporting from Milan, Italy
- The two spies were allies and kindred spirits. Robert Seldon Lady, the CIA
station chief in Milan, and Col. Stefano D'Ambrosio, the local head of the
SISMI, Italy's intelligence agency, shared pride in their fight against terrorism
and disdain for self-serving bosses. On a fall day in 2002, the
American made an explosive revelation. He told D'Ambrosio that, over his
objections, a CIA team was in Milan doing reconnaissance for the
"rendition" of an Egyptian extremist ideologue. The American was
worried that the risky operation would ruin his carefully built alliances,
D'Ambrosio testified years later, and could even lead to a shootout between
the Americans and the Italians if things went awry on the street. With an urgent look, spy to
spy, Lady said: "Talk to your people." D'Ambrosio recalled that he
got the unspoken message: "In other words, he says … 'This whole thing
is so crazy that if … two operational chiefs in the field, who know the area,
who work in this territory, say that an action is completely crazy, probably
they will back off.'" Four months after the
conversation in Milan, the CIA allegedly abducted the cleric and flew him to
Egypt, where he was tortured for months. An international scandal ensued: The
accused abductors left a sloppy trail of phone activity, credit card charges
and photo IDs that allowed Milan authorities to prosecute 26 Americans (in
absentia), including the now-retired Lady, and seven Italian officials. The brazen nature of the
alleged rendition has gotten much attention. But the trial has also revealed
how the Bush administration's drastic tactics shook up the secret world of
U.S. intelligence work overseas. Testimony has featured remarkable
allegations about feuds and rogue conduct. The case apparently made and
crushed careers and spread betrayal and suspicion among U.S. and Italian
anti-terrorism officials. On the witness stand in
October, D'Ambrosio summed it up: "We were between the tragic and the
ridiculous." The case arose from an
extrajudicial practice known as "extraordinary rendition," in which
U.S. intelligence officials have secretly abducted terrorism suspects and
transported them to secret detention facilities or to countries that subject
the suspects to harsh interrogation and, sometimes, torture. Unless otherwise noted, the
following account is based on testimony during the trial, which has slogged
on almost two years. Tragic figure Lady seems a rather tragic
figure at the heart of the case: a veteran spy who, after the Sept. 11
attacks, established himself as a point man in the shadows of the battle
against the Islamic extremist underworld. Although he took risks to try to
stop the abduction, in the end he allegedly became one of its dutiful
architects. The bearded, curly-haired
Lady, now 55, spoke excellent Italian. He thrived in the convivial culture of
Italian law enforcement, doing business over espresso and long lunches,
hosting barbecues. He cultivated bonds with anti-terrorism units of agencies
that are wary of one another: the SISMI spy service, the paramilitary
Carabinieri and the national police. He passed along valuable leads from U.S.
intercepts and offered cash and high-tech equipment for costly stakeouts. "We all had excellent
relationships with him because this was a very affable and professionally
accessible person," testified Luciano Pironi, a Carabinieri lieutenant
who confessed to a hands-on role in the abduction. "I think he had given
CIA souvenirs to half of Milan." Lady also developed his own
agents at a mosque that was a European hub for Al Qaeda, targeting a network
suspected of sending militants to training camps in northern Iraq. He helped
Milan anti-terrorism police build a case against the rendition target, Abu
Omar, regarded as a vehement ideologue in the group. At a discreet sit-down with
D'Ambrosio in October 2002, however, Lady said that his CIA bosses had
decided to circumvent the police and abduct Abu Omar, supposedly hoping to
force him to become an informant. As a result, Lady was embroiled in a feud
in his own agency. The American told D'Ambrosio that he had an
"awful" relationship with the CIA's Rome station chief, who
resented Lady's criticisms of the planned rendition and had sent a tough
deputy to Milan to make sure he followed orders. D'Ambrosio was dumbfounded.
When Lady told him that the SISMI had dispatched Italian agents to help a
team from the CIA's paramilitary "special operations group" stalk
the Egyptian, D'Ambrosio realized that his own bosses were keeping him in the
dark about the plan. Warning issued Lady said he warned
higher-ups that the idea was a colossal mistake. He said "it would
eliminate from the area a subject who was known to counter-terrorism
forces," D'Ambrosio said. "We knew what [Abu Omar] did, who he met,
where he met them. … It would cause grave harm, because at the moment Abu
Omar was substituted in his post, we would have to start all over again, with
the risk that terrorist projects perhaps in the initial stage could be
executed. … The subject they wanted to abduct was not certainly a subject who
posed an imminent danger. Abu Omar did not go around with an AK-47 ready to
shoot children." CIA bosses dismissed
objections and got clearance from top officials in Washington. D'Ambrosio
testified: "I'll tell you my impression. … The only motive was career
advancement. That is, to show Washington that [the Rome station chief] was a
tough enough and skilled enough person to pull it off." D'Ambrosio said he hurried
to Bologna to urge his boss, Marco Mancini, to abort "an action in my
territory … [that] was not only wrong but extremely dangerous. I expressed
complete dissent." Mancini seemed surprised
only that the American had confided in D'Ambrosio. A few weeks later, Mancini
ordered D'Ambrosio's transfer to Rome. Commiserating in Milan, Lady told his
friend that the CIA chief in Rome had demanded D'Ambrosio's head. And Lady
made a startling disclosure about Mancini, who soon became the No. 2 chief of
the Italian spy agency. "He told me that
Mancini had offered himself to the CIA as a double agent," D'Ambrosio
recalled. "And he said the CIA had made a negative response to the
offer. … An analysis done by CIA psychologists based on conversations with
Mancini had revealed according to them that Mancini had an extremely venal
character." Mancini and other Italian
officials deny that allegation. In addition to the Abu Omar case, Mancini has
been charged with criminal conspiracy in a corruption scandal involving
illegal wiretaps and an Italian telephone company. Despite Lady's initial
objections, he is accused of setting up the abduction on Feb. 17, 2003. He
allegedly recruited Pironi, the Carabinieri lieutenant, who confessed to
using his badge to stop Abu Omar before masked men dragged him into a van.
Pironi testified that Lady rewarded him with a paid six-day trip to the
United States featuring a visit to CIA headquarters, where two top officials
for European operations thanked him. Meanwhile, the CIA's former
Rome station chief - a defendant in the Milan trial - was promoted after the
rendition, Italian investigators said. American and Italian
spymasters have been accused of efforts at a cover-up. Two weeks after the
disappearance, the CIA allegedly sent Italian agencies a false report
indicating that Abu Omar had gone to the Balkans. It took a year until Abu
Omar was freed from prison in Egypt and resurfaced. The official story began
to unravel. But Lady's hard-won alliances and friendships with Italian police
had already fallen apart amid suspicion and silence. The U.S. government has
refused to comment. The Italian government has tried to scuttle the
prosecution in the name of state secrecy laws. Responding to a high court
decision on a government appeal, the judge here will decide Wednesday whether
the trial can continue and what evidence can be used. External link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-rendition-trial19-2009may19,0,3428679.story |