Italian court convicts 23 Americans in CIA rendition case

MILAN – An Italian court convicted 22 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force colonel on kidnapping charges on November 4 in a stern rebuke to the U.S. government's long-standing practice of covertly seizing terrorism suspects abroad without a warrant. The guilty verdicts are the first instance in which CIA operatives have faced a criminal trial for the controversial tactic of extraordinary rendition, under which terrorism suspects are abducted in one country and forcibly transported to another. The Americans were charged with snatching a Muslim cleric off the street here in 2003 and covertly flying him to Cairo, where he said he was subjected to electroshocks and other physical abuse.

In winning the guilty verdicts, Italian prosecutors said they were determined to enforce the law in spite of political pressure from Rome and Washington to drop the case. “This decision sends a clear message to all governments that even in the fight against terrorism you can’t forsake the basic rights of our democracies,” said the deputy Milan public prosecutor.

The victim, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a radical Egyptian imam also known as Abu Omar, had been under the surveillance of Italian anti-terrorism police. Italian criminal investigators said they were steamed to learn later that the CIA, secretly aided by Italian military intelligence agents, had intervened without their knowledge and thwarted their effort to bring Nasr to trial.

The Americans were all tried in absentia but were represented throughout the trial by defense attorneys, most of them court-appointed. The defendants each received a five-year prison sentence, with the exception of Robert Seldon Lady, the CIA’s former chief in Milan, who was sentenced to eight years for leading the kidnapping operation.

In rendering the verdict, the judge in the case, Oscar Magi, acquitted three other Americans, including the former Rome station chief for the CIA, saying they were covered by diplomatic immunity. The prosecutor, Armando Spataro, said his office would seek to extradite the 23 Americans from the United States. But a formal decision rests with the Italian Justice Ministry, which so far has been reluctant to alienate Washington by asking for extradition. Although it is considered unlikely that any of the convicted Americans will spend time in an Italian prison cell, the trial has served as a public embarrassment for the CIA.

The U.S. State Department expressed disappointment over the judicial ruling but the CIA had no comment.

Most of the defendants, operating under assumed names, arrived in Italy a few weeks before the kidnapping and are now considered fugitives. The judge also convicted two Italian defendants, ruling they had acted as accomplices.

The defense offered by the attorneys of the convicted was that they were following orders of the Bush/Cheney White House. From Italy to Spain and Germany, court proceedings have taken place or are underway against Bush-era crimes.

– edited from The Washington Post, 4 November 2009
Peacemeal, Nov/December 2009

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