Italian judge issues arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents

international | crime and justice | other press Friday June 24, 2005 18:10 by R. Isible

"Extraordinary rendition" is still consider to be the crime of kidnapping in Italy

Associated Press reports that an Italian judge has issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents alleged to be involved in the kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar. The victim is alleged to have been tortured in Egypt.

By AIDAN LEWIS, Associated Press Writer

ROME - An Italian judge ordered the arrests of 13 people in the purported
CIA abduction of an imam, who then was sent to Egypt, the Milan prosecutor's office said Friday. An Italian official said earlier the 13 were CIA officers involved in U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.
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The 13 are suspected of seizing Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, on the streets of Milan on Feb. 17, 2003, and sending him to Egypt, where he reportedly was tortured, Milan prosecutor Manlio Claudio Minale said in a statement.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome and the CIA in Washington declined to comment.

The prosecutor's statement did not name any of the suspects or mention the CIA by name, but an Italian official familiar with the investigation confirmed newspaper reports Friday that the suspects were working for the CIA.

Minale said the suspects remained at large, and Italian authorities would ask the United States and Egypt for assistance in the case.

Prosecutors believe the officers seized Omar as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, according to reports Friday in newspapers Corriere della Sera and Il Giorno.