Italy convicts 23 US agents in CIA kidnap trial

MILAN (AFP) – An Italian judge Wednesday convicted 23 US and two Italian secret agents for the CIA’s kidnapping of Egyptian imam Osama Mustafa Hassan, better known as Abu Omar, in 2003.
The CIA’s Milan station chief at the time, Robert Seldon Lady, was sentenced to eight years in prison and the other Americans to five years, all in their absence in the landmark trial.
The two Italians were given three-year prison terms following the first trial involving the transfer of a “war on terror” suspect by CIA operatives thought to have sent scores of people to countries known to practise torture.
The CIA chief for Italy at the time, Jeffrey Castelli, and the then head of Italian military intelligence SISMI, Nicolo Pollari, were protected by state secrecy rules, while two other US defendants benefited from diplomatic immunity, Judge Oscar Magi said.
Prosecutor Armando Spataro hailed the verdict, saying the trial, which opened in June 2007, had demonstrated “the truth of the investigation.”
Spataro had sought a 13-year jail term for Castelli and Pollari - who was forced to quit over the affair.
Osama Mustafa Hassan was snatched from a Milan street on February 17, 2003, in the operation coordinated by the CIA and SISMI.
The Opposition figure, who enjoyed political asylum in Italy, was allegedly taken to the US air force base in Aviano, northeastern Italy, then flown to the US base in Ramstein, Germany, and on to Cairo where he says he was tortured.
The “extraordinary rendition” programme was set up by the administration of then-president George W Bush in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.