|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
|
November 4th,
2009 - Italian Judge Convicts 23 in CIA Kidnap Case News article from the Associated
Press |
|
Italian Judge Convicts 23 in
CIA Kidnap Case By Colleen Barry & Victor L. Simpson Associated Press November 4, 2009 Milan - An Italian judge
found 23 Americans and two Italians guilty Wednesday in the kidnapping of an
Egyptian terror suspect, delivering the first legal convictions anywhere in
the world against people involved in the CIA's extraordinary renditions
program. Human rights groups hailed
the decision and pressed President Barack Obama to repudiate the Bush
administration's practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them
to third countries where torture was permitted. The Obama administration
ended the CIA's interrogation program and shuttered its secret overseas jails
in January but has opted to continue the practice of extraordinary
renditions. The Americans, who were
tried in absentia, now cannot travel to Europe without risking arrest as long
as the verdicts remains in place. Despite the convictions
capping the nearly three-year Italian trial, several Italian and American
defendants - including the two alleged masterminds of the abduction were acquitted due to either diplomatic
immunity or because classified information was stricken by Italy's highest
court. The case has been
politically charged from the beginning, with attempts to mislead
investigators looking into the cleric's disappearance and derail the judicial
proceedings once the trial was under way. But the Italian-American
relationship, conditioned on such issues as participation in the Afghan
campaign, is unlikely to be hurt by the convictions. The American Civil
Liberties Union said the verdicts were the first convictions stemming from
the rendition program. Three Americans were
acquitted, including the then-Rome CIA station chief Jeffrey Castelli and two
other diplomats formerly assigned to the Rome Embassy, as well as the former
head of Italian military intelligence Nicolo Pollari and four other Italian
secret service agents. Only two Italians were in
the courtroom to hear the verdict, including Marco Mancini, the former No. 2
at Italian military intelligence, who embraced his lawyer outside the
courtroom after he was acquitted. Former Milan CIA station
chief Robert Seldon Lady received the top sentence of eight years in prison.
The other 22 convicted American defendants, including a former Milan consular
official, Sabrina De Sousa and Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph Romano, each received
a five-year sentence. Two Italians got three years each as accessories. U.S. State Department
spokesman Ian Kelly said the Obama administration was "disappointed
about the verdicts." The State Department is
being sued by De Sousa, a former State Department employee who denies she was
a CIA agent and who believes she should have been granted diplomatic immunity
by U.S. officials. The judge's verdict, however, did not extend diplomatic
immunity to consular officials charged. Mark Zaid, the American lawyer
for De Sousa, told The Associated Press in Washington: "The Italian
conviction merely confirms the U.S. government's betrayal of our diplomatic
and military representatives overseas." Romano, who was one of only
two Americans who received permission to hire his own lawyer, had tried to
have the jurisdiction moved to a U.S. military court in the last weeks of the
trial. "We are clearly
disappointed by the court's ruling," Defense Department press secretary
Geoff Morrell told a Pentagon press conference Wednesday. The Americans, all but one
identified by prosecutors as CIA agents, were tried in absentia as subsequent
Italian governments refused or ignored prosecutors' extradition request - a
position that casts doubts on the Italian government's political will to enforce
the sentences. Prosecutor Armando Spataro
said he was considering asking Rome to issue international arrest warrants
for the fugitive Americans on the strength of the convictions. The government
of Silvio Berlusconi, a close ally of President George W. Bush, has
previously refused. The Americans and Italian
agents were accused of kidnapping Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as
Abu Omar, on Feb. 17, 2003, in Milan, then transferring him to U.S. bases in
Italy and Germany. He was then moved to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
He has since been released, but has not been permitted to leave Egypt to
attend the trial. Spataro had sought stiffer
sentences ranging from 10 to 13 years in jail, citing a conspiracy between
U.S. and Italian secret services to abduct Nasr, who was under surveillance
by Italian investigators building their own terror case against him. Nasr was
suspected of organizing the movement of would-be suicide bombers to the
Middle East, and Spataro noted in his closing arguments that the timing of
his CIA-led abduction, as the United States was preparing to invade Iraq,
indicated his potential importance. CIA Director Leon Panetta
said at his confirmation hearing in February that the administration would
continue the practice of rendition for prisoners captured in the war on
terrorism, but promised to get assurances first that prisoners would not be
tortured or have their human rights violated once transferred. The CIA declined to comment
on the convictions. Associated Writers Pamela
Hess in Washington and Luca Bruno in Milan contributed to this report Copyright © 2009 The
Associated Press. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iFK6jJ12W23VZD-Hsw_RZIo67JnwD9BOUKQO0 Italian court
sentences 23 CIA agents in attack on rendition An Italian court sentenced 23 US CIA agents in absentia to prison for
the abduction and 'extraordinary rendition' of Muslim cleric from Milan in
2003. By Dan Murphy Christian Science Monitor November 4, 2009 After two years of wrangling
to head off a case that centered around the Bush administration’s practice of
abducting alleged terrorists abroad and sending them to friendly third states
for interrogation, Italian prosecutors won a stunning victory on Wednesday,
when 23 US intelligence agents were convicted in absentia by a Milan court
for kidnapping. The practice of
“extraordinary rendition” became common for the CIA after the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks on the US, with hundreds of alleged militants abducted in Europe and
Central Asia and elsewhere, and delivered to states like Algeria, Egypt, and
Syria, where torture is often used against presumed enemies of the state. The
US says it received assurances that torture would not be used. But the
practice has been especially controversial in Europe, where roughly 100
Muslim men have been abducted. In a ruling that could
damage US-Italian relations, Robert Seldon Lady, the former CIA station chief
in Milan, was handed an eight-year sentence, and the 22 others - all believed
to have been CIA employees or contractors - were given five-year sentences
for the 2003 abduction from a Milan street of Muslim cleric Hassan Moustafa
Osama Nasr. The convicted Americans were also ordered to pay Mr. Nasr and his
wife $2 million. It was the first conviction for a rendition case. None of
the men are in Italy, and their whereabouts have not been disclosed. A spokeswoman for the State
Department said the US was “disappointed” by the verdict, adding that the US
was waiting for a written opinion from the judge before addressing the matter
further. As to a possible extradiction request from Italy, she said: “It is a
longstanding tradition of the United States not to comment on extradition
matters … but we would note that because of anticipated appeals this matter
is likely to continue in litigation in Italy and that final decisions with
respect to the accused are unlikely for some time.” In what the Italian press
dubbed the “kidnapped Imam affair,” Nasr, often referred to by his nickname
Abu Omar, was bundled into a minivan as he walked to noon prayers on Feb. 17,
2003, and driven to America’s Aviano airbase in Italy. From there, he was flown
to Rammstein airbase in Germany and eventually on to Egypt, his native
country, on a Learjet. Nasr was put under house arrest in Egypt in 2004 and
said he had been tortured while in detention. While Italian prosecutors
argued they struck a blow for the rule of law, and sent a message that not
even close friends like the US can expect freedom of action in Italy, their
investigation also found that the abduction took place with the knowledge of
the Italian intelligence services. Three Italian intelligence officers who
were charged in the abduction were acquitted on Wednesday, with sentencing
Judge Oscar Magi saying their acquittals were necessary to protect Italian
state secrets. Nasr, whom Egypt had granted
asylum in 2001, was under surveillance by Italian intelligence at the time of
his arrest on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities. Italian
law-enforcement agents said the US abduction disrupted their case. US
official privately alleged, when his abduction became public, that Nasr was
recruiting operatives to travel to Iraq to oppose the looming US invasion. The CIA declined to comment. Nasr’s allegations of
torture are unproven, but torture is common in Egyptian prisons - as it is in
a number of other countries that have been used in the US rendition program.
The US State Department in its annual report on Egypt’s human rights
practices said in 2004 that Egyptian “security forces continued to mistreat
and torture prisoners, arbitrarily arrest and detain persons, hold detainees
in prolonged pretrial detention, and occasionally engaged in mass arrests.” External link: http://tinyurl.com/y87llus |