Imam Rapito affair - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Abu Omar Case refers to the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr , also known as Abu Omar, is an Egyptian cleric. In 2003 he was living in Milan, Italy, from where he was kidnapped and allegedly later tortured in Egypt. This "Imam rapito affair" prompted a series of investigations in Italy, culminating in the criminal convictions of...

, also known as Abu Omar. The case was picked by the international media as one of the better-documented cases of extraordinary rendition carried out by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

(CIA) in the context of the "global war on terrorism

War on Terrorism

The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...

" declared by the Bush administration

George W. Bush administration

The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...

.

Abu Omar was abducted on February 17, 2003, in Milan by the CIA. and transported to the Aviano Air Base

Aviano Air Base

Aviano Air Base is a NATO Air Base under U.S. Air Force administration in northeastern Italy, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. It is located in Aviano municipality, at the foot of the Carnic Pre-Alps, or Southern Carnic Alps, about 15 kilometers from Pordenone.-Units:Aviano is hosted by the...

, from which he was transferred to Egypt, where he was secluded, interrogated and allegedly tortured and abused. The CIA operation interrupted a surveillance programme that was being carried out by Italian authorities into Nasr's alleged participation in Islamist

Islamism

Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...

organizations. Hassan Nasr was released by an Egyptian court in February 2007, which ruled that his detention was "unfounded". He has been indicted for international terrorism offenses in Italy since 2005.

The Italian government originally denied having played any role in the abduction. However Italian prosecutors Armando Spataro and Ferdinand Enrico Pomarici indicted 26 CIA agents, including the Rome station chief and head of CIA in Italy until 2003, Jeffrey W. Castelli

Jeffrey W. Castelli

Jeffrey W. Castelli is a noted member of the U.S. intelligence community. He was the CIA station chief in Rome at the time the Niger uranium forgeries were received by U.S...

, and Milan station chief Robert Seldon Lady

Robert Seldon Lady

Robert Seldon Lady is a convicted kidnapper and a noted member of the U.S...

, as well as SISMI

SISMI

Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....

head General Nicolò Pollari

Nicolò Pollari

Nicolò Pollari is a general of the Italian Guardia di Finanza, who was the former head of Italy's national military intelligence agency, or SISMI, until his resignation on 20 November 2006.He was born in Caltanissetta, Sicily....

, his second Marco Mancini

Marco Mancini

Marco Mancini was the second-highest ranking officer of Sismi, the military intelligence agency of Italy until his 5 July 2006 arrest for his participation in the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr...

and station chiefs Raffaele Ditroia, Luciano Di Gregori and Giuseppe Ciorra. Referring to the Italian military intelligence agency, the Italian press has talked of a "CIA-SISMI concerted operation." The prosecutors sent extradition

Extradition

Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...

requests for the indicted American citizens to the Italian Ministry of Justice, then headed by Roberto Castelli

Roberto Castelli

Roberto Castelli is an Italian politician. He was the Minister of Justice in the third Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi, he is a Senator and one of the main representatives of Lega Nord.- Career :...

, for onward transmission to Washington. However Castelli refused to forward the demand for extradition.

The affair also created controversy within the CIA when the story came to light in 2005. Porter J. Goss

Porter J. Goss

Porter Johnston Goss is an American politician who was the first Director of National Intelligence and the last Director of Central Intelligence following the passage of the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which abolished the DCI position...

the director of the CIA at the time, ordered the agency's independent inspector general to begin a review of the operation. Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then head of the National Clandestine Service

National Clandestine Service

The National Clandestine Service is one of the four main components of the Central Intelligence Agency...

(NCS), stopped the inspector general's review, stating that the NCS would investigate itself.
In June 2009 Robert Seldon Lady

Robert Seldon Lady

Robert Seldon Lady is a convicted kidnapper and a noted member of the U.S...

, Milan CIA station chief at the time, said
"I'm not guilty. I'm only responsible for carrying out orders that I received from my superiors." CIA officer Sabrina DeSousa, sentenced to five years in prison, said that the United States "broke the law ... and we are paying for the mistakes right now".

Investigation of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr

Hasaan Mustafa Osama Nasr was a radical Egyptian cleric and alleged member of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya

Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya

Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya is an Egyptian Islamist movement, and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union and Egyptian governments...

who had fled Egypt due to that group's prosecution as a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government. He was granted political asylum in Italy in 2001, and held an Italian asylum passport.

As early as Spring 2002, he was under investigation by Italian and American intelligence agencies by means of wiretaps

Telephone tapping

Telephone tapping is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was an actual electrical tap on the telephone line...

and physical and electronic surveillance

Covert listening device

A covert listening device, more commonly known as a bug or a wire, is usually a combination of a miniature radio transmitter with a microphone. The use of bugs, called bugging, is a common technique in surveillance, espionage and in police investigations.A bug does not have to be a device...

. Italian authorities have claimed that they believed that they had evidence Nasr was building a network to recruit terrorists, and possibly had links to Al Qaeda. They alleged in particular links with Ansar al-Islam

Ansar al-Islam

Ansar al-Islam is a Sunni Islamist group of Iraqis, promoting a radical interpretation of Islam, close to the official Saudi ideology of Wahhabism with strict application of Sharia. The group was formed in the northern provinces of Iraq near the Iranian border, and previously had established...

and ties to a network sending combatants in the Iraqi Kurdistan

Iraqi Kurdistan

Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan Region is an autonomous region of Iraq. It borders Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west and the rest of Iraq to the south. The regional capital is Arbil, known in Kurdish as Hewlêr...

.
However, citing a book on Al-Qaeda by Jason Burke

Jason Burke

Jason Burke is a British journalist and the author of several non-fiction books. A correspondent covering South Asia for The Observer and The Guardian, he is based in New Delhi as of 2010. In his years of journalism, Burke has addressed a wide range of topics including politics, social affairs and...

, a British reporter at The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

, La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...

noted in June 2005 that in 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration was claiming, along with British prime minister Tony Blair

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

, that Iraq maintained close links with Al-Qaeda, in particular through Ansar al-Islam. The Italian newspaper concluded that the Abu Omar case was a "chapter in the combination of intelligence

Intelligence

Intelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....

–psychological warfare

Psychological warfare

Psychological warfare , or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations , have been known by many other names or terms, including Psy Ops, Political Warfare, “Hearts and Minds,” and Propaganda...

–information war engaged by Washington and London to justify the invasion of Iraq." There are also reports that Nasr was involved in plotting a terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy

American diplomatic missions

This is a list of diplomatic missions of the United States.-History:Morocco, in December 1777, became the first nation to recognize the United States and together they maintain the United States' longest unbroken treaty.Benjamin Franklin established the first overseas mission of the United States...

in Rome, and was suspected of being involved in a plot to bomb a number of children of foreign diplomats attending the American School of Milan, although sources disagree whether such plots even existed.

Most observers have come to believe that Nasr was abducted by the United States as a source of intelligence on foreign combatants being recruited to fight in Iraq, which, at the time, the United States had yet to invade.

Abduction and rendition to Egypt

On February 17, 2003, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr

was abducted by persons allegedly affiliated with the CIA as he walked to his mosque in Milan for noon prayers.

According to court documents, Nasr was pushed into a minivan on Via Croce Viola in Milan and driven four or five hours to a joint Italian-U.S. air base at Aviano

Aviano Air Base

. He was allegedly torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

d there. From there, he was flown by a Lear jet

Lear Jet

Learjet is a manufacturer of business jets for civilian and military use. It was founded in the late 1950s by William Powell Lear as Swiss American Aviation Corporation. Learjet is now a subsidiary of Bombardier and marketed as the "Bombardier Learjet Family".-History:The Learjet started life as an...

(using the call sign

Call sign

In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign is a unique designation for a transmitting station. In North America they are used as names for broadcasting stations...

SPAR 92) to Ramstein

Ramstein Air Base

Ramstein Air Base is a United States Air Force base in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz. It serves as headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe and is also a North Atlantic Treaty Organization installation...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. SPAR (Special Air Resources) is the call sign used by US senior military officers and civilian VIPs for airlift transport. A second plane then took him to Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, where he was imprisoned and, he claims, tortured.

In April 2004, while his incarceration had been downgraded to house arrest

House arrest

In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...

, Nasr placed several phone calls from Egypt to his family and friends. He told them he had been rendered into the hands of Egypt's SSI

State Security Intelligence

The Egyptian State Security Investigations Service was the highest national investigating authority in Egypt. Estimated to employ 100,000 people, the SSI was the main security apparatus of Egypt's Ministry of Interior and had the role of controlling opposition groups, both armed groups and those...

at Tura

Tura (Egypt)

Tura was a site in Ancient Egypt, located about halfway between modern Cairo and Helwan. It was Egypt's primary quarry for limestone. The limestone from Tura was the finest and whitest of all the Egyptian quarries, so it was used for facing stones for the richest tombs, as well as for the floors...

prison, twenty miles south of Cairo. He claimed to have been subjected to various depredations, tortured by beating and electric shock

Electric shock

Electric Shock of a body with any source of electricity that causes a sufficient current through the skin, muscles or hair. Typically, the expression is used to denote an unwanted exposure to electricity, hence the effects are considered undesirable....

s to the genitals, raped,
and eventually had lost hearing in one ear. At the time of the calls he had been released on the orders of an Egyptian judge because of lack of evidence. Shortly after those calls were made he was re-arrested and placed back in prison.

Nasr was not released again until February 11, 2007, at which time he was permitted to return to his family. After four years of detention, an Egyptian court ruled that his imprisonment was "unfounded."

In 2006, Nasr's lawyer Montasser el-Zayat

Montasser el-Zayat

Montasser el-Zayat or Muntasir al-Zayyat is an Egyptian lawyer and author whose former clients, according to press reports, included Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya. He has written a book entitled Ayman al-Zawahiri as I Knew Him, which is strongly critical of al-Zawahiri. El-Zayat...

said Nasr was underfed but there were "no signs of torture."

Investigation and warrants for CIA operatives

The CIA agents were implicated, in part, by extensive cellphone records which allowed Milan police to reconstruct their movements for the nine days they were in the city. Because the agents had apparently not, at any time, removed the batteries from their cellphones, investigators were able to pinpoint their locations from moment to moment. The agents also made numerous phone calls to the US consulate in Milan, to northern Virginia

Northern Virginia

Northern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...

(where the CIA headquarters are located) and to friends and family in the United States.

The operation was allegedly led by Robert Seldon Lady

Robert Seldon Lady

Robert Seldon Lady is a convicted kidnapper and a noted member of the U.S...

, former CIA station chief in Milan, who was then operating out of the U.S. embassy under diplomatic cover as the "Consul of the United States in Milan." The operation was carried out by the CIA's Special Activities Division

Special Activities Division

The Special Activities Division is a division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service responsible for covert operations known as "special activities"...

. Lady has said that he opposed the abduction plans, but was overruled. Lady has since retired from the CIA, which puts him in a precarious legal position, as the status of his diplomatic immunity is now in doubt.

In December 2005, CIA Director

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency serves as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is part of the United States Intelligence Community. The Director reports to the Director of National Intelligence . The Director is assisted by the Deputy Director of the Central...

Porter Goss ordered a sweeping review of the agency's field operations because of what he perceived as the Milan rendition's "sloppiness".

In June 2005, Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

judge Guido Salvini issued warrants for the arrest of 22 persons said to be agents or operatives of the CIA, including Jeffrey W. Castelli

Jeffrey W. Castelli

Jeffrey W. Castelli is a noted member of the U.S. intelligence community. He was the CIA station chief in Rome at the time the Niger uranium forgeries were received by U.S...

, head of the CIA in Italy until 2003 . Salvini said the abduction was illegal because it violated Italian sovereignty

National sovereignty

National sovereignty is the doctrine that sovereignty belongs to and derives from the nation, an abstract entity normally linked to a physical territory and its past, present, and future citizens. It is an ideological concept or doctrine derived from liberal political theory...

and international law

International law

Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...

and disrupted an ongoing police investigation. He also issued a warrant for the arrest of Nasr, on charges of associating with terrorists.

In November 2005, Italian prosecutors requested that Italy's Justice Ministry seek the extradition of the suspects from the United States. The Italian government declined.

On December 20, 2005, European arrest warrant

European Arrest Warrant

The European Arrest Warrant is an arrest warrant valid throughout all member states of the European Union . Once issued by a member state, it requires the receiving member state to arrest and transfer a criminal suspect or sentenced person to the issuing state so that the person can be put on...

s were issued for the 22 suspects.

In April 2006, just after the Italian general election

Italian general election, 2006

In the Italian general election, 2006 for the renewal of the two Chambers of the Parliament of Italy held on April 9 and April 10, 2006 the incumbent prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the center-right House of Freedoms, was narrowly defeated by Romano Prodi, leader of the center-left The...

, outgoing Justice Minister

Justice Minister

A justice ministry is a ministry or other government agency charged with justice. The ministry is often headed by a minister for justice or secretary of justice or secretary for justice; sometimes the head of a department of justice is entitled attorney general.Specific duties may relate to...

Roberto Castelli

(Lega Nord) told prosecutors that he had decided not to pass the extradition request to the United States.

One of the "concerted CIA-SISMI operations"

The abduction allegedly occurred without the knowledge of at least the Italian intelligence and law enforcement officials working directly on the Nasr case, who initially suspected that Nasr had been kidnapped by the Egyptian government, possibly with the cooperation of other branches of the Italian government. When the Italians questioned their American counterparts about Nasr's disappearance, they were told he had traveled voluntarily to the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

.

Furthermore, Italian officials initially denied the Italian government had authorized or sanctioned a US operation to kidnap Nasr. Italian Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Carlo Giovanardi

Carlo Giovanardi

Carlo Amedeo Giovanardi is an Italian politician and member of the Parliament..-Political career:He graduated in jurisprudence, and did his military service in the Carabinieri...

, member of Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...

's second and third government, said in no uncertain terms to the Italian parliament

Parliament of Italy

The Parliament of Italy is the national parliament of Italy. It is a bicameral legislature with 945 elected members . The Chamber of Deputies, with 630 members is the lower house. The Senate of the Republic is the upper house and has 315 members .Since 2005, a party list electoral law is being...

: "Our secret services were not aware of the operation ... It was never brought to the attention of the government or national institutions."

But former CIA officials contradicted this by claiming the agency had secured the consent of Italian intelligence, and that the CIA's station chief

Station Chief

Station Chief is a term for certain officials who are appointed as chief of a 'station', i.e. a stationary post, of various natures.-Colonial:...

in Rome, Jeffrey W. Castelli

Jeffrey W. Castelli

Jeffrey W. Castelli is a noted member of the U.S. intelligence community. He was the CIA station chief in Rome at the time the Niger uranium forgeries were received by U.S...

, had been granted explicit permission for the operation by his Italian counterpart. Furthermore, the circumstances of Nasr's abduction tended to accredit the thesis of at least passive support of the operation by Italian intelligence services. In particular, questions were raised by the CIA agents' startling laxity in travel arrangements. By all accounts, they did little to cover their tracks. Instead of fleeing immediately, most of them remained in Italy days after the operation, in some of Milan's best hotels. Only some of them used aliases. The rest traveled with their normal passports and drivers licenses, paid for things with credit cards in their real names, chatted openly on cell phones before, during, and after the operation. After the abduction, they even carelessly bypassed speed limits in Milan. Some have speculated this represents evidence of Italian complicity, as little apparent effort was made to obfuscate the identities of the participants.

This hypothesis was confirmed by Italian investigations. On July 5, 2006 two high-ranking Italian intelligence officers were arrested by Italian police for their alleged complicity in Abu Omar's kidnapping. These included Marco Mancini

Marco Mancini

, number 2 of SISMI

SISMI

Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....

, Italy's military intelligence agency, and Gustavo Pignero, the agency's chief for the northern region of Italy. Italian wiretaps caught Mancini admitting that he had lied about his involvement in the abduction case. These arrests signaled the first official admission that Italian intelligence agents were involved in the abduction. Additionally, the former head of SISMI's Milan office, Col. Stefano D'Ambrosio, claims that he was removed from his position by his superiors because of his objections to the abduction plot; he was later replaced by Mancini.

Thus, public prosecutors Armando Spataro and Pomarici have described the abduction as "a concerted CIA-SISMI operation" organized by "Italian and American agents" with the aim of the "capture" and "secret transfer" of the imam to Egypt. Paolo Biondani and Italian counter-terrorist expert Guido Olimpio cited the November 18, 2005 article published by Dana Priest

Dana Priest

Dana Priest is an American author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Priest has worked almost 20 years for The Washington Post. As one of the Post's specialists on National Security she has written many articles on the United States' "War on terror." In 2006 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Beat...

in the Washington Post, where she described the CTIC

Counterterrorist Intelligence Center

A Counterterrorist Intelligence Center is, according to a Washington Post November 18, 2005 front page article by Dana Priest, a counterterrorist operations center run jointly by the CIA and foreign intelligence services as part of the US "War on Terror" .- Description of CTIC :According to Dana...

(Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Center), a "joint operation centers in more than two dozen countries where U.S. and foreign intelligence officers work side by side to track and capture suspected terrorists and to destroy or penetrate their networks." Italy was not included in this international alliance of intelligence agencies, which largest base was in Paris, named Alliance Base

Alliance Base

Alliance Base was the cover name for a secret Western Counterterrorist Intelligence Center that existed between 2002 and 2009 in Paris. The existence of CTICs were first revealed by Dana Priest in a November 17, 2005 Washington Post article, while she referred to the Alliance Base in a July 2,...

.

According to Guido Olimpio and Paolo Biondani, Italy was not included in the CTIC allegedly because of internal jealousy between various Italian intelligence agencies. But they noted that, despite that, the arrest ordinance against Marco Mancini and his superior General Gustavo Pignero referred to the operation as an example of the "non orthodox activity" (the only one known of) realized by the CIA and the SISMI "since 2002," thus demonstrating some sort of cooperation between US and Italian intelligence agencies, albeit not in the frame of the CTIC.

Furthermore, according to testimonies by SISMI agents to the Italian justice, Mancini proposed himself to the CIA as a "double agent

Double agent

A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...

" According to Colonel Stefano D'Ambrosio, former SISMI responsible in Milan replaced by Mancini, the CIA refused to hire the latter because they considered him too "venal." But his demand "left traces in the computer" of the US intelligence . All SISMI testimonies converge in saying that Mancini owed his dazzling career to his "privileged relations with the CIA." According to SISMI testimony, after the February 17, 2003 kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Nasr, then CIA director George Tenet

George Tenet

George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....

sent a letter to SISMI General Nicolò Pollari

Nicolò Pollari

in August 2003, to which Mancini would allegedly owe the real reasons of his promotion to number 2 of the SISMI . In another, earlier article, the same author, Guido Olimpio, wrote that following the abduction of the imam, SISMI informed the Italian government and then the CIA, assuring them that no agent who had taken part in this covert operation would be prosecuted. In turn, CIA director George Tenet would have sent a letter to Forte Braschi, the SISMI headquarters in Rome.

Furthermore, apart of the July 2006 arrest of Marco Mancini, n°2 of the SISMI, and of Gustavo Pignero, the agency's chief for the northern region of Italy, the head of SISMI General Nicolò Pollari

Nicolò Pollari

had to resign in November 2006 because of the affair and was indicted in December by the Milanese judges.

The trial

In addition to the 22 European arrest warrants issued in December 2005 and the arrest of the above-mentioned SISMI officers, an Italian judge issued additional arrest warrants for four Americans, three CIA agents and for Lieutenant Colonel Joseph L. Romano

Joseph L. Romano

Colonel Joseph L. Romano is an officer in the United States Air Force and one of 26 American nationals charged by Italian authorities with the 2003 kidnapping of Italian resident cleric Hassan Nasr as part of an alleged covert CIA operation, and Romano was subsequently convicted in...

III, commander of security forces

Air Force Security Forces

United States Air Force Security Forces are the Military Police, Base Security and Air Base Ground Defense forces of the United States Air Force...

at the Aviano Air Base

Aviano Air Base

at the time, now working at Section 31b of the Pentagon. Ultimately, twenty-six Americans and nine Italians (including head of SISMI Nicolò Pollari

Nicolò Pollari

, n°2 of the same intelligence agency Marco Mancini

Marco Mancini

, as well as General Gustavo Pignero; and also the junior ROS

Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale

The Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale , is part of the Italian Carabinieri. Founded on 3 December 1990 to coordinate investigative activities against organized crime, it now the main investigative arm of the Carabinieri which deals with organized crime and terrorism...

officer Giuliano Pironi) were indicted. The trial would be the first criminal trial related to the U.S. practice of extraordinary rendition.

The start of the trial was set for June 8, 2007, although it was adjourned until October 2007, pending an upcoming ruling by Italy's Constitutional Court regarding the possible violation of state secrecy laws by Milan prosecutors who used phone taps on Italian agents during their investigation.

Two other Italian suspects reached plea bargain

Plea bargain

A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...

s. Giuliano Pironi, who admitted stopping Nasr and controlling his identity during the kidnapping, was given a suspended sentence on one year, nine months and a day. Renato Farina, vice-director of Libero
Libero (newspaper)
Libero is an Italian Right-wing newspaper, published in Milan, Italy, founded by the journalist Vittorio Feltri and edited by Maurizio Belpietro....

newspaper, who was hired by the SISMI in 1999, was accused as an accessory. He was given six months sentence that was converted into a fine . Carabinieri Piniori testified that he asked for Nasr' identity papers on Robert Lady's request, and assured that the operation was a concerted CIA-SISMI operation. The first one to confess the involvement of the CIA and the SISMI in the abduction of Abu Omar, Piniori thought, when he participated in the operation, that he was passing a test to enter the SISMI. He later realized he had been instrumentalized

Marco Mancini admitted to Milan prosecutors having followed orders of his superior General Pignero, who himself obeyed requests from Jeff Castelli, CIA head in Italy, to the director of the SISMI, General Pollari. Mancini confessed having organised a meeting in Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

with all the heads of the SISMI centers. He illustrated on this occasion the plan for the abduction. The arrest warrants issued on June 15, 2006 against Jeff Castelli, other US agents, Mancini and Pignero were done on these grounds .

In the meantime, Milan prosecutor Armando Spataro found out the existence of an office, in the centre of Rome, linked to SISMI, in charge of 'secret operations.' It was directed by a close collaborator of head of SISMI Pollari. According to the European Parliament

European Parliament

The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...

"Temporary Committee on the Alleged Use of European Countries by the CIA for the Transport and the Illegal Detention of Prisoners", headed by rapporteur Giovanni Claudio Fava:

The main target of this office consisted in distorting the national press information, through journalists ad hoc hired by SISMI, by editing false reports with the aim to keep high the "terrorism alert" vis-à-vis the public opinion
Public opinion
Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views....

. Among the duties also the one of chasing and tapping the communications of the two journalists of the newspaper "La Repubblica" in charge of the Abu Omar case: Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'avanzo.

In a secretly registered conversation General Pignero, Mancini's superior, confirmed having met SISMI director Pollari right after a meeting with Jeff Castelli, head of the CIA in Italy. He said on this occasion that he had received by Pollari a list of names, among others that of Abu Omar, and to have been ordered to observe the Egyptian cleric in view of his abduction. Pignero then ordered Mancini to proceed with all these activities .

Interrogated by the Milan prosecutor in July 2006, General Pollari involved the Italian government and invoked a classified document. Romano Prodi's government has confirmed its classified status . During his hearing in August 2006 before the Italian Parliamentary Committee on Secret services control (Copaco), Pollari defended himself again invoking the raison d'état .

In October 2006, prosecutor Spataro transmitted to the European Temporary Committee a copy of a SISMI document, from which it comes out that SISMI was informed by the CIA on May 15, 2003 that Abu Omar was interrogated in Cairo by Egyptian services. Enrico Micheli, the Italian government's responsible for secret services, declared to the European committee that the Berlusconi administration had classified files related to the Abu Omar case, and that the Prodi administration confirmed such secrecy .

Any trial of American citizens is expected to happen in absentia

In absentia

In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...

. The United States is not expected to extradite

Extradition

Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...

the CIA operatives. As of February 2007, the Italian government has issued no extradition requests, although the Italian judiciary has been calling for the government to do so since 2005. Justice Minister Clemente Mastella

Clemente Mastella

Mario Clemente Mastella is an Italian politician. He is currently leader of Popular-UDEUR, a minor centrist Italian party. He was Minister of Labour in the Berlusconi government from 10 May 1994 to 17 January 1995, and Minister of Justice in the Prodi government from 17 May 2006 to 17 January 2008...

, member of the new government of Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...

, Prime minister of Italy since the 2006 general election

Italian general election, 2006

, has still given no news of the extradition request given to him by Armando Spataro, the Milanese public prosecutor. Current Minister of Infrastructures and former prosecutor of Milan, Antonio di Pietro

Antonio Di Pietro

Antonio Di Pietro is an Italian politician. He was a Member of the European Parliament, an Italian Senator, and Minister of the Prodi Government...

, has criticized on February 15, 2007, his governmental colleagues, claiming that the refuse to transmit the extradition requests to the US abounded to "cover an illegal operation, the kidnapping of a person."

Freed on February 11, 2007, Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr has deposed a complaint against former Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, demanding 10 million Euro of damage and interests "for his implication in the kidnapping as chief of the government [during the events] and for having permitted the CIA to capture him."

The Italian executive has opposed the judges in Milan, by deposing a recourse before the Constitutional Court against Armando Spataro, charging him of having violated state secret

State Secret

State Secret is a 1950 British drama film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Jack Hawkins, Glynis Johns and Herbert Lom. It was released in the United States under the title The Great Manhunt.-Cast:...

by using the wiretaps recordings of SISMI agents. In particular, Romano Prodi's government accused the magistrates of having revealed the identity of 85 foreign and Italian spies. The Italian government has said it will wait for the ruling before issuing the extradition requests.

Convictions

On November 4, 2009, an Italian judge convicted 22 suspected or known CIA agents, a U.S. Air Force (USAF) colonel and two Italian secret agents of the kidnap, delivering the first legal convictions in the world against people involved in the CIA's extraordinary renditions program. Former Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady

Robert Seldon Lady

Robert Seldon Lady is a convicted kidnapper and a noted member of the U.S...

received eight years in prison. The rest of the Americans, including former Milan U.S. consular official Sabrina De Sousa

Sabrina De Sousa

Sabrina De Sousa is a convicted kidnapper and a former American diplomat, who made international news in 2009 for suing the State Department in order to secure diplomatic immunity for her role in kidnapping in an Italian court case...

, and USAF Lieutenant Colonel Joseph L. Romano

Joseph L. Romano

, at the time of conviction commander of the 37th Training Wing at Lackland Air Force Base

Lackland Air Force Base

Lackland Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located west-southwest of San Antonio, Texas. The base is under the jurisdiction of the 802d Mission Support Group, Air Education and Training Command ....

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, got five years each. The convicts were also ordered to each pay €1 million to Nasr and €500,000 to his wife. Three Americans, including the then-Rome CIA station chief Jeffrey Castelli and two other diplomats formerly assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Rome, as well as the former head of Italian military intelligence Nicolo Pollari

Nicolò Pollari

and four other Italian secret service agents were acquitted due to diplomatic immunity

Diplomatic immunity

Diplomatic immunity is a form of legal immunity and a policy held between governments that ensures that diplomats are given safe passage and are considered not susceptible to lawsuit or prosecution under the host country's laws...

.

All but two Italians were tried in absentia

In absentia

, and, as long as the verdicts remain in place, the 23 convicted Americans cannot travel to Europe without risking arrest. U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly expressed disappointment over the verdicts. Pentagon

The Pentagon

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

Press Secretary Geoff S. Morrell

Geoff S. Morrell

Geoffrey S. Morrell is an American public affairs person who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, and was the Press Secretary of the Department of Defense. He was hired to the position in June 2007 and departed in June 2011...

said that the judge had ignored requests for Lieutenant Colonel Romano's case to be moved to the United States, adding that "Our view is the Italian court has no jurisdiction over Lieutenant Colonel Romano and should have immediately dismissed the charges. Now that they have not, we will, of course, explore what options we have going forward." The CIA declined to comment. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi

denied knowledge of any kidnap operation, and criticized the trial claiming that it could hurt Italy's international reputation.

American Defendants

List of American defendants that were charged.

ADLER Monica Courtney, alias Maria Luana Baetz, born in Seattle (Washington - USA) on 02/02/1973
ASHERLEIGH Gregory, born in Hyattsville - Maryland (USA) on 12/23/1955
CARRERA Lorenzo Gabriel, born in Texas (USA) on 01.29.71
CASTALDO Eliana, born in Florida (USA) on 11/14/1969
CASTELLANO Victor, born in Texas (USA) on 05/01/1968
Jeffrey CASTELLI (acquitted), the head of CIA in Italy at the time (chief of station in Rome)
CHANNING Drew Carlyle, born in New York (USA) on 04/26/1965
Sabrina DE SOUSA, born in India, State Department diplomat, helped make false documents to mislead investigators
DUFFIN John Kevin, born in Illinois (USA) on 05/03/1952
FALDO VINCENT, born in Massachusetts (USA) on 11.1.1950
GURLEY John Thomas, born in Los Angeles (USA) on 07/10/1969
HARBAUGH Raymond, born in Alaska (USA) on 06.09.39
HARBISON James Thomas, d.o.b. 12.15.1948 in the USA
HARTY Ben Amar, born in Iowa (USA) on 10.20.44
IBANEZ Brenda Liliana, born in New York (USA) on 01.07.60
JENKINS Anne Lidia, born in Florida on 09/24/1946
KIRKLAND James Robert, born in Tennessee (USA) on 07.13.42
LADY Robert Seldon, born in Tegucigalpa (Honduras) on 21.05.54
LOGAN Cyntia Dame, born in Maryland (USA) on 05/01/1960
MEDERO-NAVEDO Betnie, d.o.b 3.29.1967 in the USA
PURVIS L. George, born in China on 05.29.59
RUEDA Pilar, born in California (USA) on 05.08.61
RUSSOMANDO Ralph Henry, helped make false documents to mislead investigators;
SOFIN Joseph, born in Moldova on 02/13/1953
VASILIOU Michalis born in Greece on 11.05.62

Italian Defendants

List of Italian defendants that were charged.

General Nicoli Pollari, former director of the Italian secret service, SISMI
Marco Mancini, SISMI, director of operations under Gen. Pollari
Raffaele Ditroia, SISMI station chief: direct role in abduction
Luciano Di Gregorio, SISMI station chief: direct role in abduction
Giuseppe Corra, SISMI station chief: direct role in abduction
Pio Pompa, SISMI: aiding and abetting abduction
Luciano Seno, SISMI: aiding and abetting abduction
Renato Farina, former reporter: Plea-bargained and received reduced sentence.
Luciano Pironi Marshall of the Carabinieri (paramilitary) police: Plea-bargained and received 21-month sentence.

Political context

The exposé of the incident, coming just before Italy's general election

Italian general election, 2006

, was a major embarrassment for the Berlusconi administration

Silvio Berlusconi

. If it had admitted foreknowledge of or complicity in the operation, it would have been admitting that one part of the government (its intelligence services) deliberately undermined the efforts of another (its judiciary). If it had denied any involvement, it would point to a serious lapse in Italian security, as it would mean foreign intelligence agencies would be able to pull off major operations within Italy, right under the nose of Italy's own intelligence agencies, with virtual impunity.

Either way, most observers thought it clear Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi

did not wish the case to proceed. He initially told the press that he did not believe the CIA was responsible for the abduction, and even if they were responsible, it was a justifiable action. He was widely quoted in the press as having said, "You can't tackle terrorism with a law book in your hand.". He then declared to the ANSA agency: "This is a trial we absolutely should not have, and its result will be that our intelligence services will no longer have the cooperation of foreign intelligence" .

Berlusconi's successor, Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...

, has thus far seemed more amenable to the judicial investigations, although is proceeding guardedly. Despite prosecutors' numerous requests, the Italian government still has issued no extradition requests to the United States.

The Imam Rapito case poses the problem of Italy's involvement in the US "War on Terror

War on Terror

".
The incident also served to highlight tensions between Italy's fiercely independent judiciary and its executive administration (including the intelligence services), which would have preferred the judiciary didn't press the issue with the United States. During the Italian investigations into the incident, it was discovered that not only had SISMI

SISMI

Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....

(or a division of it) collaborated with the CIA in the abduction, it had also been illegally surveiling Italian citizens, particularly Italian magistrates unfriendly to the Berlusconi administration

Silvio Berlusconi

, often with the help of Italian journalists. Italian prosecutors believed reporters from right-wing paper Libero

Libero (newspaper)

Libero is an Italian Right-wing newspaper, published in Milan, Italy, founded by the journalist Vittorio Feltri and edited by Maurizio Belpietro....

used interviews with the lead prosecutor in the abduction case, Armando Spataro, as a pretext to glean confidential information to pass on to SISMI

SISMI

Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....

agents. On July 6, 2006, Libero's offices were raided by Italian police.

CIA station chief's admission

In June 2009 Robert Seldon Lady

Robert Seldon Lady

Robert Seldon Lady is a convicted kidnapper and a noted member of the U.S...

, Milan CIA station chief at the time, was quoted by Il Giornale
Il Giornale
il Giornale is an Italian daily newspaper published in Milan, Italy.-History:The newspaper was planned in 1972 by the journalist Indro Montanelli, together with the colleague Enzo Bettiza, after some disagreements with the new pro-left editorial line adopted by the newspaper Corriere della Sera,...

newspaper saying
"I'm not guilty. I'm only responsible for carrying out orders that I received from my superiors,"
He denied criminal responsibility because it was a "state matter." "I console myself by reminding myself that I was a soldier, that I was in a war against terrorism, that I couldn't discuss orders given to me." Lady's retirement villa has been seized by magistrates to cover court costs.

External links

http://www.statewatch.org/cia/documents/milan-tribunal-6-us-citizens-sought-en.pdf
Watching America – Italy Says CIA Agents Guilty of Abduction, Issues Europe-Wide Arrest Warrants 27/06/05
The Kidnapping of Abu Omar aka Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr – A Document Archive

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Investigation of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr

Abduction and rendition to Egypt

Investigation and warrants for CIA operatives

One of the "concerted CIA-SISMI operations"

The trial

Convictions

American Defendants

Italian Defendants

Political context

CIA station chief's admission

See also

External links