Robert Seldon Lady
Encyclopedia
Robert Seldon Lady is a convicted kidnapper and a noted member of the U.S. intelligence community.
The former United States Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) station chief in Milan
, Lady is now a fugitive
from Italian police
after being convicted of kidnapping of Egypt
ian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr
in February 2003, in what the Italian press are referring to as the Imam Rapito
(or "kidnapped imam
") affair.
and became a New Orleans Police Department
police officer in the 1970s.
(see extraordinary rendition
) as he walked to his mosque
in Milan for noon prayers. Lady is said to have travelled to Egypt
soon after the operation, where Nasr alleges he was interrogated and torture
d.
Lady initially claimed diplomatic immunity
in an effort to avoid judicial proceedings against him in Italy, but in November 2005 an Italian judge rejected this request, stating that Lady had forfeited his immunity when he retired from the CIA, and also that the alleged abduction
was in any case a crime serious enough to disqualify him from immunity.
Lady, and his wife Martha, retired to northern Italy, near Asti
, in September 2003. When the Italian police raided his home in June 2005, Lady was not there. Since that time there are reports that he is living in Honduras or the United States
.
region of Northern Italy seized to cover court costs.
On 16 February 2007 an arrest warrant
was issued for Lady for the kidnapping of Abu Omar
. An Italian prosecutor, Armando Spataro, was scheduled to begin trying the case in June 2007. Lady's Italian lawyer, Daria Pesce, withdrew from the case shortly after the beginning of legal proceedings, saying her client refused to cooperate with the court proceedings because he believed the matter should be settled through a political, rather than legal solution. Lady dismissed his attorney soon afterwards, although the court in Milan has appointed a public defense attorney for him. The trial against Lady and the other US defendants began in absentia
later that month, although it was quickly adjourned until October 2007.
In an interview with GQ Magazine in March 2007, Lady said of his superiors at the CIA that "the agency has told me to keep quiet and let this blow over."
as saying of the kidnapping, "I'm not guilty. I'm only responsible for carrying out orders that I received from my superiors." While thus denying criminal responsibility, he evidently admitted that he had been involved in the illegal abduction: "When you work in intelligence, you do things in the country in which you work that are not legal. It's a life of illegality ... But state institutions in the whole world have professionals in my sector, and it's up to us to do our duty." He said of Abu Omar’s abduction, "Of course it was an illegal operation. But that’s our job. We’re at war against terrorism." While evidently admitting illegal activity, he claimed to be following orders: "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."
called this decision a "land mark ruling" and an "enormous symbolic victory" for Italian prosecutors because it "was the first ever to contest the United States practice of rendition, in which terrorism suspects are captured in one country and taken for questioning in another, presumably one more open to coercive interrogation techniques."
The former 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) station chief in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Lady is now a fugitive
Fugitive
A fugitive is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from private slavery, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals...
from Italian police
Italian police
Law enforcement in Italy is provided by eight separate police forces, six of which are national groups in Italy.During 2005 in Italy, the number of active police officers from all agencies totaled 324,339, the highest number in the European Union both overall and per capita, twice the number of...
after being convicted of kidnapping of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian cleric 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...
in February 2003, in what the Italian press are referring to as the Imam Rapito
Imam Rapito affair
The Abu Omar Case refers to the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar...
(or "kidnapped imam
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
") affair.
Background
Lady grew up in HondurasHonduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
and became a New Orleans Police Department
New Orleans Police Department
The New Orleans Police Department has primary responsibility for law enforcement in New Orleans, Louisiana. The department's jurisdiction covers all of Orleans Parish, while the city is divided into eight police districts....
police officer in the 1970s.
The Imam Rapito affair
Italian authorities proved in court that in 2003, Lady helped a team of CIA agents kidnap NasrImam Rapito affair
The Abu Omar Case refers to the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar...
(see extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another. "Torture by proxy" is used by some critics to describe situations in which the United States and the United Kingdom have transferred suspected terrorists to other countries in order to torture the...
) as he walked to his mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
in Milan for noon prayers. Lady is said to have travelled to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
soon after the operation, where Nasr alleges he was interrogated and 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.
Lady initially claimed 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...
in an effort to avoid judicial proceedings against him in Italy, but in November 2005 an Italian judge rejected this request, stating that Lady had forfeited his immunity when he retired from the CIA, and also that the alleged abduction
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
was in any case a crime serious enough to disqualify him from immunity.
Lady, and his wife Martha, retired to northern Italy, near Asti
Asti
Asti is a city and comune of about 75,000 inhabitants located in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy, about 55 kilometres east of Turin in the plain of the Tanaro River...
, in September 2003. When the Italian police raided his home in June 2005, Lady was not there. Since that time there are reports that he is living in Honduras or the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
2007 indictment
In January 2007, an Italian court ordered Lady's home in the PiedmontPiedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
region of Northern Italy seized to cover court costs.
On 16 February 2007 an arrest warrant
Arrest warrant
An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by and on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual.-Canada:Arrest warrants are issued by a judge or justice of the peace under the Criminal Code of Canada....
was issued for Lady for the kidnapping of Abu Omar
Abu Omar
Abu Omar may refer to:*Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi , also known as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, Iraqi insurgent*Abu Omar al-Kurdi, real name Sami Muhammad Ali Said al-Jaaf, bomb maker who worked in Iraq...
. An Italian prosecutor, Armando Spataro, was scheduled to begin trying the case in June 2007. Lady's Italian lawyer, Daria Pesce, withdrew from the case shortly after the beginning of legal proceedings, saying her client refused to cooperate with the court proceedings because he believed the matter should be settled through a political, rather than legal solution. Lady dismissed his attorney soon afterwards, although the court in Milan has appointed a public defense attorney for him. The trial against Lady and the other US defendants began 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...
later that month, although it was quickly adjourned until October 2007.
In an interview with GQ Magazine in March 2007, Lady said of his superiors at the CIA that "the agency has told me to keep quiet and let this blow over."
2009 Interview
In June 2009 Robert Seldon Lady, was quoted by Il GiornaleIl 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,...
as saying of the kidnapping, "I'm not guilty. I'm only responsible for carrying out orders that I received from my superiors." While thus denying criminal responsibility, he evidently admitted that he had been involved in the illegal abduction: "When you work in intelligence, you do things in the country in which you work that are not legal. It's a life of illegality ... But state institutions in the whole world have professionals in my sector, and it's up to us to do our duty." He said of Abu Omar’s abduction, "Of course it was an illegal operation. But that’s our job. We’re at war against terrorism." While evidently admitting illegal activity, he claimed to be following orders: "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."
2009 Conviction
On November 4, 2009, Italian Judge Oscar Magi convicted Lady, along with 22 other accused CIA employees, of kidnapping, handing down an eight-year sentence. The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
called this decision a "land mark ruling" and an "enormous symbolic victory" for Italian prosecutors because it "was the first ever to contest the United States practice of rendition, in which terrorism suspects are captured in one country and taken for questioning in another, presumably one more open to coercive interrogation techniques."
External links
- Robert Seldon Lady & Extraordinary RenditionExtraordinary renditionExtraordinary rendition is the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another. "Torture by proxy" is used by some critics to describe situations in which the United States and the United Kingdom have transferred suspected terrorists to other countries in order to torture the...
on Al Jazeera English's People & PowerPeople & PowerPeople & Power is the flagship current affairs programme on Al Jazeera English, broadcast twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays, and repeated throughout the week....
, presented by Max KeiserMax KeiserTimothy Maxwell "Max" Keiser is an American broadcaster, film-maker, and former equities broker. Keiser is the host of On the Edge, a program of news and analysis hosted by Iran's Press TV. He also hosts Keiser Report, a financial program broadcast on RT - formerly Russia Today...
at at Aljazeera.net