ITALY: An Italian appeals court ordered the arrest of six additional CIA agents in connection with the disappearance of a radical Muslim cleric who was snatched from the streets of Milan two years ago, a prosecutor has said.
The arrest warrants, issued yesterday, bring to 19 the number of CIA operatives being sought by Italian justice officials. None is believed to be in Italy currently, and no one has been arrested in connection with the case.
"We now have 19 fugitives," the lead prosecutor in the case, Armando Spataro, told the Los Angeles Times.
At issue is the disappearance of Hassan Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, an Egyptian cleric whom Italian officials say was kidnapped by CIA agents and bundled off to an Egyptian jail, where he was tortured. The operation was believed to be an "extraordinary rendition", a controversial US practice of clandestinely seizing suspects in one country and transporting them to another, where they are interrogated and sometimes brutalised.
Italian prosecutors' efforts to arrest and try the CIA operatives have proved enormously embarrassing to the agency and to Italian government officials, straining traditionally close US-Italian ties. It is rare for one of Washington's allies to attempt to prosecute US spies. The six for whom warrants were issued yesterday are believed to have followed Abu Omar, who had been living in Milan since 2001, determined his habits and patterns, and chose the best routes for transporting him to the US-Italian Aviano airbase in northern Italy, from which he was flown to Egypt.
The operation appeared sloppy: according to Italian court documents and interviews with Italian law enforcement officials, the operatives behaved recklessly, leaving a clear trail. They spoke frequently on cell phones and rented rooms at luxury hotels using passports and credit cards.
Although most of the names used were probably aliases, the identity of the former CIA station chief in Milan was exposed and disseminated widely in the Italian media and some American media. He has vanished from a retirement home he purchased near Turin.
Mr Spataro, the Italian prosecutor, sought arrest warrants this year for all 19 operatives allegedly involved in the operation.
A judge last month granted them for the 13 who allegedly participated directly in seizing the cleric in Milan. The judge refused to order the arrest of the six who allegedly helped in reconnaissance. Mr Spataro appealed, and a three-judge court granted his request on Monday.