Italian judge convicts 23 Americans in CIA case
Terror suspect's kidnapping case is first in world to tackle U.S. practice of rendition.

By Rachel Donadio
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Thursday, November 05, 2009

www.statesman.com/news/cont...05cia.html


MILAN — In a landmark ruling, an Italian judge Wednesday convicted a CIA station chief and 22 other Americans, almost all Central Intelligence Agency operatives, of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003.

The case was a symbolic victory for Italian prosecutors, who won the first convictions anywhere in the world involving the U.S. practice of rendition, in which terrorism suspects are captured in one country and taken for questioning in another, often one more open to coercive interrogations. The fact that Italy would actually convict intelligence agents of an allied country was seen as a bold move that could set a precedent in other cases.

The Americans — who were tried in absentia and are considered fugitives — now cannot travel to Europe without risking arrest as long as the verdicts stand.

Still, the convictions might have little other practical effect. They don't seem to change the close relations between the United States and Italy. Nor did they reveal whether the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had approved the kidnapping. And it seemed highly unlikely that anyone, Italian or American, would spend any time in prison.

Judge Oscar Magi handed an eight-year sentence to Robert Seldon Lady, a former CIA base chief in Milan, and five-year sentences to the 22 other Americans, including an Air Force colonel and 21 CIA operatives.

Through their court-appointed lawyers, they all pleaded not guilty.

Three of the other high-ranking Americans charged were given diplomatic immunity, including Jeffrey Castelli, a former CIA station chief in Rome. Citing state secrecy, the judge also didn't convict five high-ranking Italians charged in the abduction.

Armando Spataro, the counterterrorism prosecutor who brought the case, said he was considering asking the Italian government for an international arrest warrant for the fugitive Americans.

Spataro said he was pleased with what he called "very courageous" verdicts. He said it was a victory that, despite U.S. and Italian government opposition, "we brought the trial to an end, and the facts were shown to be what they were."

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the United States was disappointed by the verdicts. He said that because the convictions were likely to be appealed, he couldn't comment on the specifics of the case.

Italian prosecutors had charged the Americans and seven members of the Italian military intelligence agency in the abduction of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, on Feb. 17, 2003. Prosecutors said he was snatched in broad daylight, flown from an American air base in Italy to a base in Germany and then on to Egypt, where he asserts that he was tortured. He has since been released but wasn't permitted to leave Egypt to attend the trial.

The rendition team left a sloppy trail of cell phone calls, credit card charges and photo identification documents that enabled Italian police to assemble a meticulously detailed portrait of the crime.

One of those convicted, former Milan consular official Sabrina De Sousa, accused Congress of turning a blind eye to the entire matter.

"No one has investigated the fact that the U.S. government allegedly conducted a rendition of an individual who now walks free and the operation of which was so bungled," she said, speaking through her lawyer Mark Zaid.

Zaid said: "The Italian conviction merely confirms the U.S. government's betrayal of our diplomatic and military representatives overseas."

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would only say that "the CIA has not commented on any of the allegations surrounding Abu Omar."

In June, Italian newspaper Il Giornale published an interview that it said it had conducted via Skype with Lady, the former CIA chief in Milan, whose whereabouts are unknown. He was quoted as saying of the abduction: "Of course it was an illegal operation. But that's our job. We're at war against terrorism."

Additional material from The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times.