CIA renditions areabout to go on trialin Italy.
CIA Operatives Indicted By Milan CourtBy Cliff Montgomery – Mar. 1st, 2007On Feb. 16th, an Italian judge gave approval for what will be the first overseas criminal trial of CIA officers involved in a covert counterterrorism operation. A court in Milan has indicted more than two dozen Americans on charges of kidnapping a radical Muslim cleric four years ago, according to the Washington Post.After a two-month judicial hearing, the court handed down indictments against 25 CIA operatives, a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and five Italian spies on suspicion of grabbing an imam, Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, off the street and stuffing him into a white van as he walked to noonday prayers Feb. 17, 2003. Nasr was taken from Milan to a prison in his native Egypt, where he claims to have been tortured for more than three years.The trial is scheduled to open June 8th, and will question the legality of a long-standing CIA practice known as “extraordinary rendition“–a covert action in which terrorism suspects are abducted and taken to other countries for interrogation. Many of these countries practice torture on their suspects.Not one of the American defendants is in custody, nor are any expected to appear in court. Prosecutors are adamant they will be tried in absentia.Italian courts issued arrest warrants for the CIA operatives in 2005. A judge approved the recent indictments after the judicial hearing and a long criminal investigation which retraced in minute detail how the CIA planned the kidnapping plot.The CIA and the State Department declined any comments.”This is an issue that is before the judiciary in Italy,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey told the Post.This is not the first time that CIA officers have faced criminal charges for illegally abducting a terrorism suspect. In January, German prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA operatives suspected of kidnapping a Lebanese German man, Khaled el-Masri, in the Balkans in December 2003 and transporting him to Afghanistan.Masri was released five months later–after the CIA realized they’d grabbed the wrong man.Investigating magistrate Armando Spataro, along with his Milan prosecution team, has asked the Italian government to file a request with the U.S. Justice Department for extradition of the American defendants. A previous request was refused, by Roberto Castelli, then Italy’s justice minister; but it is being reconsidered by a new Italian government which came to power last year.The indictment published the aliases of the 25 CIA operatives, which include the CIA’s former Rome station chief Jeffrey Castelli and former Milan substation chief Robert Seldon Lady. The operatives are accused of conspiring with the Italian military intelligence agency, known as Sismi.Most of the CIA operatives named in the indictments are known only by their undercover aliases. Prosecutors said they do not know the operatives’ true identities, and admit it is unlikely any will be found or brought to Italy to stand trial.A former Sismi director, Gen. Nicolo Pollari, also has been charged.Arianna Barbazza, a Milan lawyer who has been appointed to represent several of the U.S. defendants, admitted it was highly unlikely that the Bush Administration would respond to an extradition request, even if the Italian government decided to make one.Barbazza added the trial will probably reveal more about the Italian spies and their agency, “because it will attempt to verify whether Sismi was aware beforehand of the kidnapping.”Matilde Sansalone, who represents the CIA’s former Rome station chief and two other Americans, told the Post that the CIA operatives’ apparent decision not to hire their own lawyers “demonstrates a specific choice to not participate in the proceedings.”Sansalone said she and other defense lawyers would not contest Nasr’s abduction, but would argue that there is insufficient evidence to find individual defendants guilty.While we’re certainly not legal experts here, we at the Spark wonder if this tactic may backfire. If it’s admitted that Nasr was abducted by CIA operatives and rendition to countries which torture their prisoners is ever found to be a war crime, the Italian courts may then demand from the agency the names of these operatives to issue formal charges.If the cases do go that far, they could be a strike against the Bush Administration’s call for absolute power during its self-proclaimed “war on terror.”
