ITALY: In a climate of growing embarrassment fuelled by denials and counter-denials, the head of the Italian parliament's secret services committee, Copaco, yesterday called for a full parliamentary investigation into the circumstances surrounding the February 2003 kidnapping of the Egyptian imam Abu Omar.
Last week, a Milan-based judge issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA operatives who allegedly kidnapped 42-year-old Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, as he walked to the Milan mosque on Viale Jenner on February 17th, 2003.
Italian investigators believe that the imam was the target of a CIA "extraordinary rendition" operation, being first kidnapped and then transferred to Egypt, where he was imprisoned and tortured. It is believed that Abu Omar is still in Egyptian custody.
Copaco president Enzo Bianchi called for the parliamentary inquiry in the wake of Italian government claims that it had no prior knowledge of the CIA operation on Italian territory.
Speaking to both houses of parliament on Thursday, minister for parliamentary relations Carlo Giovanardi said no information about the kidnapping "was communicated either to the government or to state institutions".
He added: "Thus, it is simply impossible that an operation of this type - or indeed the involvement of Italian units in such an operation - was ever authorised."
Minister Giovanardi's comments, subsequently confirmed by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, contrast sharply with reports in the Washington Post and New York Times claiming senior Italian intelligence figures knew of the operation in advance.
In an interview in yesterday's Turin daily, La Stampa, the former head of the CIA's anti-terrorism unit, Vincent Cannistraro, also claimed that Italian secret services had been informed, saying: "Italian secret services knew all about the operation in Milan, they even took part in organising it and carrying it out. Maybe they didn't give their government all the details, but that's your problem, not America's.
"Do you really think it would be possible to send a dozen operatives into a friendly country to carry out this type of operation without someone noticing something?
"There was no way the operation could have been carried out without it being discovered by Italian services. Sure, there were even Italian speakers in the unit."
Just three months after Italian secret services agent Nicola Calipari was killed by US troops in Baghdad minutes after the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, these allegations of CIA involvement in the kidnapping of Abu Omar have prompted pubic concern and dismay.