NYT: Italy vs. CIA

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Thirteen With the C.I.A. Sought by Italy in a Kidnapping


By STEPHEN GREY and DON VAN NATTA
Published: June 25, 2005

MILAN, June 24 - An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 officers and operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency on charges that they seized an Egyptian cleric on a Milan street two years ago and flew him to Egypt for questioning, Italian prosecutors and investigators said Friday.

The judge, Chiara Nobili of Milan, signed the arrest warrants on Wednesday for 13 C.I.A. operatives who are suspected of seizing an imam named Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, as he walked to his mosque here for noon prayers on Feb. 17, 2003.

It is unclear what prompted the issuance of the warrants, but Judge Guido Salvini said in May that it was "certain" that Mr. Nasr had been seized by "people belonging to foreign intelligence networks interested in interrogating him and neutralizing him, to then hand him over to Egyptian authorities."

Mr. Nasr, who was under investigation before his disappearance for possible links to Al Qaeda, is still missing, and his family and friends say he was tortured repeatedly by Egyptian jailers.

The detailed warrants remained sealed in a Milan courthouse on Friday. But copies obtained by The New York Times show that 13 American citizens, all identified in the documents as either C.I.A. employees or as having links to the agency, are wanted to stand trial on kidnapping charges, which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years and 8 months in prison. The Americans' whereabouts are unknown.

One of those wanted, identified in the court papers as the agency's top officer in Milan, is described as "having coordinated the mission and also guaranteeing connections and assistance to others involved in the crime." He left Milan and flew to Egypt five days after the abduction, the warrant says.

In the papers, Judge Nobili wrote that she was persuaded of the Americans' involvement in part because of evidence that their cellphones were "all interacting with one another" at the time and scene of the abduction.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has been an ally of the Bush administration in the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq, had no comment on the warrants. Such judicial documents are issued independently of the government.

The chief C.I.A. spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise, declined to comment on the charges, as did the American Embassy in Rome and the Consulate in Milan.

This is the first time a foreign country has tried to prosecute American agents for the process of rendition, in which terrorism suspects captured abroad are sent by the United States to their home countries or to third countries, some of which have records of torturing prisoners.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been no exchanges between Italy and the United States about the investigation before the judge acted.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 100 terrorism suspects have been transferred by the United States to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and other countries where, some former captives have said, they were tortured. Agency officials defend the practice, which began a decade ago, as a legal and effective way to thwart terrorists.

The agency usually carries out the transfers with the permission of foreign governments, but Italian investigators said they were unaware of any agreement between Italy and the United States about Mr. Nasr.

It was not known Friday whether the Italian government had approved the rendition here. In interviews in recent months, several former American intelligence officials have said they would be surprised if C.I.A. operations here had not been approved by Italy.

Several senior Italian investigators said they believed the 13 operatives had left Italy. A raid carried out Thursday at a villa owned by one of the operatives in the Piedmont hills produced a computer disk drive and documents, investigators said.

Italian investigators had assumed the operation was conducted jointly by Italian and American officials because witnesses said the kidnappers spoke fluent Italian. But on Friday, they said they had found evidence only of American involvement.

"There is no shadow of proof of any Italian involvement," one senior investigator said. "If someone came to tell us that the Italians were involved, we'd open up the investigation again."

But a second senior Italian investigator said it was possible that the government had approved the operation because the C.I.A. operatives had operated openly and without apparent concern about being detected. For instance, the official said, the American agents used their Italian cellphones at the precise moment Mr. Nasr was abducted; they kept the phones switched on for hours at a time, making it easier to track their movements; and they dialed many phone numbers in the United States, most of them in northern Virginia, including at least one number at agency headquarters.

The police said they were able to retrace nearly every step the American operatives made during the nine days they were in Milan for the operation. They identified the suspects by examining all cellphones in use near the abduction, and then tracing the web of calls placed. Investigators said they were able to trace several calls by Americans on the road from Milan to Aviano, the joint American-Italian air base north of Venice.

The suspects stayed in five-star Milan hotels, including the Hilton, the Sheraton, the Galia and Principe di Savoia, in the week before the operation, at a cost of $144,984, the warrant says, adding that after Mr. Nasr was flown to Egypt, two of the officers took a few days' holiday at five-star hotels in Venice, Tuscany and South Tyrol.

The Italian investigators also collected photocopies of the operatives' passports, photographs, cellphone numbers and their MasterCard and VISA credit card numbers. Six other American officials - either C.I.A. officers or diplomats posted at the Milan consulate - are under investigation for helping support the abduction, Italian investigators said.

Former American intelligence officials said there was increasing concern within the agency's directorate of operations that aggressive actions by operatives against suspected terrorists might lead to indictments of agents in foreign countries.

Mr. Nasr, a 42-year-old Egyptian-born cleric, came to the attention of counterterrorism officials here in 1997, shortly after he arrived from Albania. After Sept. 11, 2001, he was identified by American and Italian intelligence officials as a supporter of Al Qaeda who fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia and had made anti-American statements. At the time that he disappeared, Italian authorities were investigating reports that Mr. Nasr had tried to recruit jihadists through his mosque in Milan.

From the arrest warrants and interviews with investigators, the following chronicle of Mr. Nasr's disappearance can be assembled.

The Milan police said they had been told by witnesses that at noon on Feb. 17, 2003, two or three Italian-speaking men approached Mr. Nasr as he walked along Via Guerzoni, in an industrial area on the outskirts of the city. The men asked Mr. Nasr to show them his identification, the witnesses said. The men then sprayed him in the face with chemicals and forced him into a white van, which sped away.

Since then, the Italian police and prosecutors, led by Prosecutor Armando Spataro, have treated Mr. Nasr's disappearance as a missing person's case.

The warrants describe evidence that Mr. Nasr was taken within five hours to the American military base at Aviano, and was flown to Egypt on Feb. 18, 2003. His journey to Egypt began on an Air Force Learjet, operated under a radio call-sign Spar 92, which is used by the 76th Airlift Squadron, in Ramstein, Germany. It took off from Aviano at 6:20 p.m. for Ramstein. There, a week later, Mr. Nasr was transferred onto a Gulfstream IV executive jet for Cairo, the warrants say.

The Gulfstream belongs to a part-owner of the Boston Red Sox, Philip H. Morse. The warrant noted that Mr. Morse had previously confirmed that his jet was regularly leased to the C.I.A., with the team's logo covered. In an article in The Boston Globe on March 21, Mr. Morse was quoted as saying he was "stunned" by a newspaper report that the plane might have been used for renditions.

Mr. Nasr was released from custody in Egypt 14 months later, in April 2004, and he phoned his wife in Milan and an associate to say he had been subjected to electric shock treatments, the investigators said. He also described the route that he was taken shortly after his kidnapping, providing an important clue to the Italian police. Besides complaining about hearing loss in one ear, Mr. Nasr also said he could barely walk.

Shortly after placing the calls, he was rearrested by the Egyptian police and has not been heard from again.

In Italy on Friday, several public officials demanded answers from the Italian government. Paolo Cento, a Green Party legislator and vice president of the justice committee in the Chamber of Deputies, called for the interior and defense ministers to say whether the Italian authorities had been alerted by the Americans before the seizure. "We want to know if American agents have freedom of action on our territory and how, if that is the case, the government intends to protect the prerogative of our sovereignty," he said.

It is a time of particular vulnerability for Mr. Berlusconi in his relationship with the United States. Positioning for general elections next year has already begun, and he is likely to face strong questioning from the opposition and possibly from inside his own divided coalition on whether his center-right government knew, approved of or took part in the abduction.

Mr. Berlusconi could be open to criticism in any case: Not knowing could bring into question the government's competence and add to a sense here that the United States has taken Italy's friendship for granted, especially given the 3,000 troops it supplied for Iraq.

A senior Italian official said the apparent abduction of Mr. Nasr had disrupted the Italians' attempt to identify his connection to a suspected terrorist network in Europe. "Our belief is that terrorist suspects should be investigated through legal channels and brought to a court of law - not kidnapped and spirited away to be tortured in some secret prison," the official said.

Milan's chief prosecutor, Manlio Claudio Minale, said in a statement, "We will also ask the Egyptian authorities and the American authorities for assistance."

A senior Italian investigator said neither country had provided much help during the investigation.
 
Quote from article - "Our belief is that terrorist suspects should be investigated through legal channels and brought to a court of law - not kidnapped and spirited away to be tortured in some secret prison," the official said.

Nah, that's a liberal cop-out. Torture is the American way.
 
financeguy said:
Quote from article - "Our belief is that terrorist suspects should be investigated through legal channels and brought to a court of law - not kidnapped and spirited away to be tortured in some secret prison," the official said.

Nah, that's a liberal cop-out. Torture is the American way.

People in glass houses

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2005/0625/2131480763HM1MARK.html






Garda concerns raised in 2000




The Garda Síochána told the Government in August 2000 that gardaí in Donegal had exploited and manipulated witnesses, used false information and testimony to cast suspicion, and that there was reason to believe that some had abused their powers, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent

Marked "Secret", the information is contained in a summary of Assistant Commissioner Kevin Carty's investigation into allegations of "criminal and unethical behaviour" by Donegal gardaí between 1991 and 1998.

Meanwhile, the Donegal branch of the Garda Representative Association has demanded that the GRA go to court to block the transfer to Dublin of five gardaí criticised by the Morris tribunal, The Irish Times has learnt, though their GRA leaders are opposed.

The summary, sent to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in August 2000, was written by then deputy commissioner Noel Conroy, who now serves as Garda Commissioner.

The evidence unearthed by Mr Carty "raises the most serious concerns about the conduct of some gardaí in the course of the Barron investigation", Mr Conroy told then minister for justice John O'Donoghue.

The disclosure will increase the pressure on Minister for Justice Michael McDowell and Mr O'Donoghue to justify the delay in setting up the Morris tribunal until two years later, in May 2002.

In the Dáil last week, Mr McDowell said it did not finally become clear to the government that a tribunal had to be set up until January 2002, following a review of the full text of the Carty report by barrister Shane Murphy SC.

However, the 37-page summary sent by Mr Conroy 18 months earlier acknowledged that Mr Carty had found serious evidence that significant numbers of gardaí had behaved improperly.

Dealing with the investigation into Richie Barron's death in Raphoe in 1996, Commissioner Conroy said the Carty report had highlighted the inadequate investigation into his death and detailed "incidents where false information and testimony" were tendered to cast suspicion on the McBrearty family and others.

Summarising the report, Mr Conroy said it was "an extraordinary coincidence" that Bernard Conlon had been able falsely to allege that Mark McConnell had threatened him "without some assistance from somebody with a knowledge of the Barron investigation".

The conduct of two gardaí, Sgt John White and Garda John O'Dowd, "gave grave cause for concern", wrote Mr Conroy, while some of the prosecutions taken by them "were devoid of the discretion and balance that might be reasonably expected by any citizen of this State", he told Mr O'Donoghue.

"On the balance of probabilities and accumulated circumstances there is reason to believe that both members engaged in an abuse of process," Mr Conroy wrote.

Green Party TD Ciarán Cuffe last night said the Conroy summary proved the government had had enough information to set up a public inquiry in 2000, but that it had deliberately chosen not to do so.

However, Mr Conroy's report did make it clear that the Carty inquiry team had sent a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions recommending criminal proceedings against Supt Kevin Lennon and Det Noel McMahon, Sgt John White, Garda John O'Dowd and a number of members of the public, including William Doherty.

Mr McDowell advised Mr O'Donoghue, following the latter's request for assistance in May 2001 - over nine months after Mr Conroy's summary was sent to him - that a tribunal would "seriously" prejudice and compromise subsequent trials.

Referring to the discovery of alleged IRA arms dumps, Commissioner Conroy made clear that the Carty report had concluded that Supt Lennon and Det McMahon had shown "apparent untruthfulness" and an "apparent lack of ethical standards".
 
cardosino said:

Yes Cardosino I am well aware of the Tribunal Report detailing police corruption in Donegal, Ireland.

Abuse of process, yes, but I am unaware of any allegations however of Garda torturing people or holding them without trial for years and years in secret locations.

So I don't see the relevance of the story you posted.
 
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We will never now how many lives are saved by these operations and renditions.

"Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf." - George Orwell
 
financeguy said:


Yes Cardosino I am well aware of the Tribunal Report detailing police corruption in Donegal, Ireland.

I am unaware of any allegations however of Garda torturing
people or holding them without trial for years and years.

So I don't see the relevance of the story you posted.

Nor do I see how "torture is the American way" is applied to your story posted. Were there substantiated allegations of American torture in that case ? No.
 
A_Wanderer said:
"Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf." - George Orwell

Funnily enough I have seen a very similar argument used by IRA terrorists in holding themselves forth as 'morally superior' to constitutional nationalists in Northern Ireland.
 
financeguy said:

Funnily enough I have seen a very similar argument used by IRA terrorists in holding themselves forth as 'morally superior' to constitutional nationalists in Northern Ireland.
Well I guess that everybody considers themselves to be righteous then.
 
The alleged torture was carried out by the Egyptian government. Saudi Arabia also carries out torture on its own citizens and foreigners busted for alleged crimes.
 
First renditions happened during Clinton administration.
He said he allowed it and had reservations.


When Administration supporters bring up pass incidents or other situations the occured in the past that were wrong it is essentially a waving of the white flag.

They are saying they surrender, the charge is correct and the Administration is guilty of violations.

So, they distract, and try to change the argument.



example: Policeman, " Stop raping that woman."

Rapist, "That man over there raped

two women, five years ago."
 
No; rendition of terrorists is justified in certain circumstances, both when Clinton did it and when this administation does it. But it would be a lot better if there was more scrutiny and accountability of the operations that balances the sensitivity of national security and the rights of the people to know what their government is up too..
 
A_Wanderer said:
No; rendition of terrorists is justified in certain circumstances, both when Clinton did it and when this administation does it. But it would be a lot better if there was more scrutiny and accountability of the operations that balances the sensitivity of national security and the rights of the people to know what their government is up too..


funniest thing I read in a long time
 
Would it be better if I said that Clinton was 100% wrong in doing it but it should be given to Bush carte blanche?
 
verte76 said:
The alleged torture was carried out by the Egyptian government. Saudi Arabia also carries out torture on its own citizens and foreigners busted for alleged crimes.

Who put him in Egypt in the first place?


The US does this all the time. They do as they please with every case. Look at Honduran drug-lord Carlos Mata (the guy who offered to pay Honduras' external debt). He was jogging outside his home when foreign officials came and took him right then and there. Now he's sitting in a jail in Texas.
 
A_Wanderer said:
Would it be better if I said that Clinton was 100% wrong in doing it but it should be given to Bush carte blanche?


But it would be a lot better if there was more scrutiny

and accountability of the operations

and the rights of the people to know what their government is up too..

The reason "Rendition" was created and is used is to make sure none of these things can happen.

They won't even admit it takes place.

That is why I said your post was funny.
 
balances the sensitivity of national security and the rights of the people to know what their government is up too.

One of the many shades of grey that exist in the world is the balance between liberties and securities. In principle removing terrorists and interrogating them in secret thus preventing their cohorts to know where they are, what happened to them or what the authorities may know about their behaviour is a useful tool but one that is easily open to abuse. Accountability would be requiring some form of authorisation independent of both the agency and the government. Having an effective system of checks and balances that leave room for this is better than the current system of denying it exists and having zero accountability.
 
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A_Wanderer said:
balances the sensitivity of national security and the rights of the people to know what their government is up too.

One of the many shades of grey that exist in the world.

the rights of the people to know what their government is up too.????

what don't you get?


there is no balance here.
by it's very nature there is no oversight

This program has run amuck.


We live in a world with many gradations between black and white.


Much of what is posted in here

is false dichotomies.


i. e. Vote for LBJ or support nuclear holocaust. (before your time.)

Accept my Jesus or Burn in Hell.

With us or against us

Support War in Iraq or coddled terrorists.

Support renditions or we will never know how many lives are saved by these renditions.
 
How is an argument that says that there can be benefits to the process a false dichotomy?

If I said that if you don't support rendition then you are responsible for people who die in terrorist attacks, that would be a false dichotomy, but making a point that it is impossible to know the benefit and that it can save lives is a legitimate argument. You are creating straw men to argue against; I have not seen anybody declare another "unpatriotic" for opposing war on this forum ~ I have however seen consistent statements that this is what supporters say. It dodges the issues.

Reign in the program, if the oversight is not there then it can be created.

The people are always kept in the dark about national security, part of protecting the people always comes down too keeping secrets from their enemies. Having an openly acknowleded authority that can prevent abuse of this can be an important function in a free society, one that I think is currently lacking in certian circumstances and needs to be created.
 
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Originally posted by A_Wanderer at 08:52 AM -
We will never now how many lives are saved by these operations and renditions.

"Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf." - George Orwell

you are telling me the purpose of THIS post is not to support rendition

and imply not doing so prevents - many lives saved
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
bringing the courts into an intelligence operation is a very dangerous game that i really don't think the italians want to be playing...

With the speed and efficiaency at which the Italian Justice system works, we'd just now be getting rumors of an Allied landing in Calais..........
 
cardosino said:


With the speed and efficiaency at which the Italian Justice system works, we'd just now be getting rumors of an Allied landing in Calais..........

yeah... I never heard about this story before here in Italy..
 
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