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First Criminal Trial for US' Rendition Practice to Be Held in Italy
Quote:
Italy orders CIA kidnapping trial
An Italian judge has ordered 26 US citizens - most of them CIA agents - to stand trial over the kidnap of an Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003.
Osama Mustafa Hassan was allegedly seized by the CIA and flown to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
Seven Italians were also indicted, including Italy's ex-military intelligence chief, Nicolo Pollari.
The case would be the first criminal trial over the secret US practice known as "extraordinary rendition".
During rendition, people suspected of involvement in terror activities are taken from one country and flown to another, where many claim they are tortured.
Extradition decision
Most of the indicted US citizens are believed to have returned home from Italy.
The Italian government has yet to decide whether or not it wishes to request their extradition.
Prime Minister Romano Prodi is coming under renewed pressure to do so at a time when Italian-US relations are sticky at best, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Rome.
The US has never commented on the case.
Those indicted include the former station chief of CIA operations in Milan, Robert Seldon Lady, who says his opposition to the proposal to kidnap the imam was over-ruled.
He is reported to be among those who have returned to the US, leaving behind a villa in Italy which he bought with his life savings.
Mr Pollari, the former head of the Italian secret service, SISMI, had already been removed from his job following a parliamentary inquiry into the claims.
Of the seven Italians who were charged, six were charged with abduction and one is accused of withholding information on abductions.
Lawyers say they have compiled thousands of pages of documents and testimony from Italian agents past and present, some of whom have acknowledged working with the US in planning the abduction.
The trial is due to begin on 8 June.
Torture claims
Mr Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, was released from prison in Egypt only on Sunday.
He says that he was repeatedly beaten and tortured during his four years of detention in Cairo.
He described one form of torture in which he was forced to lie on a wet mattress through which an electric current was passed.
Mr Hassan still faces the risk of arrest as a terror suspect if he returns to Italy, our correspondent says, but his lawyer has said that he wishes to come to Milan nonetheless to testify during the trial.
On Wednesday, EU lawmakers endorsed a damning report accusing some member states of turning a blind eye to rendition, naming Italy as one of the countries involved.
I would like to see this pursued, although the Italian government is ambivalent, because I would really like to see something get highlighted in all this -- not just that we yanked people off the street without benefit of warrant ot procedure, not just that we sent prisoners to countries for torture, not just that most EU countries assisted or passively cooperated, but that Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and a couple others are quite blatantly using extreme physical torture in their prisons, on civilian prisoners as well as dissidents and 'terrorists.' Egypt's torture history is awful, and it remains incredibly commonplace there. Syria has long been notorious.
Yes, we should be appalled that we do this business with them, but no one is holding the torturing countries to any kind of international law.
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oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
U.S. says will not extradite CIA agents to Italy
By Mark John 2 hours, 32 minutes ago
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States will reject any request by Italy to extradite CIA agents for the first criminal trial over controversial U.S. "renditions" of terror suspects, a U.S. government lawyer said on Wednesday.
A Milan judge earlier this month ordered 26 Americans, most of them thought to be CIA agents, to stand trial with Italian spies for kidnapping a Muslim cleric and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
"We've not got an extradition request from Italy ... If we got an extradition request from Italy, we would not extradite U.S. officials to Italy," State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger told a news briefing.
Bellinger, in Brussels for meetings with European legal advisers, did not comment on details of the case but said the United States would never hand over a suspect to another country without assurances about their treatment.
He acknowledged widespread concern in Europe about the tactics of the Bush administration in what it calls the "war on terror" but said the risk of legal action against U.S. officials in Europe was harming intelligence cooperation.
"The continuing threat of criminal charges not only harms cooperation on our end but does also cast a pall over cooperation on the European side as well," he said.
"We get assurances from countries that individuals will be properly treated and if we can't get these assurances then we will not turn people over to those countries," he added.
Bellinger's remarks were no surprise and meant the indictees would probably stand trial in absentia on June 8.
THORN IN THE SIDE
Among those indicted for the 2003 abduction are Jeff Castelli, former CIA chief in Rome, former CIA Milan station chief Robert Lady and a former head of Italy's SISMI military intelligence agency, Nicolo Pollari.
Prosecutors say a CIA-led team, with SISMI's help, grabbed terrorism suspect Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, off a Milan street in February 2003, bundled him into a van and drove him to a military base in northern Italy.
Prosecutors allege the CIA flew him from there via Germany to Egypt, where he says he was tortured with electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse.
Persistent criticism by European rights groups and lawmakers of U.S. anti-terror tactics and the alleged acquiescence of European governments has long troubled officials on both sides of the Atlantic.
A court in Munich issued arrest warrants last month for 13 suspected CIA agents accused of kidnapping a German of Lebanese descent and flying him to a jail in Afghanistan, where he too says he was tortured.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a senior aide to former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, has also faced a barrage of criticism over charges that he blocked the release of a German-born Turkish man held in Guantanamo Bay prison.
A European Parliament report published this month said that renditions were illegal and had taken place with the collusion of a number of European governments and their secret services.
Bellinger rejected the report as an "unbalanced, inaccurate and unfair" interpretation of acceptable and important intelligence cooperation.
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