Warrants issued 13 CIA Italy for kidnapping

[Moses]

www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/international/europe/25milan.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

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June 25, 2005

Thirteen With the C.I.A. Sought by Italy in a Kidnapping
By STEPHEN GREY and DON VAN NATTA

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 investigationbefore 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.

Stephen Grey reported from Milan for this article, and Don Van Natta from London. Reporting was contributed by Ian Fisher and Jason Horowitz in Rome, Elisabetta Povoledo of The International Herald Tribune in Milan, and Margot Williams in New York.



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[Moses]

June 26, 2005

In Italy, Anger at U.S. Tactics Colors Spy Case
By STEPHEN GREY
and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

MILAN, June 25 - The extraordinary decision by an Italian judge to order the arrest of 13 people linked to the Central Intelligence Agency on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect here dramatizes a growing rift between American counterterrorism officials and their counterparts in Europe.

European counterterrorism officials have pursued a policy of building criminal cases against terrorism suspects through surveillance, wire-taps, detective work and the criminal justice system. The United States, however, has frequently used other means since Sept. 11, 2001, including renditions - abducting terror suspects from foreign countries and transporting them for questioning to third countries, some of which are known to use torture.

Those two approaches seem to have collided in the case of an Egyptian cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, or Abu Omar, who led a militant mosque in Milan.

By early 2003, the Italian secret police were aggressively pursuing a criminal terrorism case against Mr. Nasr, with the help of American intelligence officials. Italian investigators said they had told the Americans they had strong evidence that he was trying to build a terror recruitment network, possibly aimed for Iraq if the United States went forward with plans to topple Saddam Hussein.

On Feb. 17, 2003, Mr. Nasr disappeared.

When the Italians began investigating, they said, they were startled to find evidence that some of the C.I.A. officers who had been helping them investigate Mr. Nasr were involved in his abduction.

"We do feel quite betrayed that this operation was carried out in our city," a senior Italian investigator said. "We supplied them information about Abu Omar, and then they used that information against us, undermining an entire operation against his terrorist network."

He and other senior Italian officials in Milan's police and prosecutor's office were angry enough to answer detailed questions about the case, but insisted on anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

"This whole investigation has been very difficult because we've been using the same methods we used against organized crime to trace the activities of people we considered to be our friends and colleagues," the senior Italian investigator said. "It has been quite a troubling affair."

The Italian warrants - requested by Milanese prosecutors after two years of investigations - accuse 13 people identified as American C.I.A. officers and operatives of illegally abducting Mr. Nasr from a Milan street and flying him to Egypt for questioning. The whereabouts of the 13 are unknown, but the charges are criminal. If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of 10 years and 8 months in prison.

The C.I.A. has declined to comment, and officials at the American consulate in Milan and the American Embassy in Rome have also declined to talk about the case.

The Italian police and prosecutors said the C.I.A.'s top official at the United States consulate in Milan, a man accused in the arrest warrant of coordinating Mr. Nasr's abduction, had been in close contact with them as they pursued intensive investigations into Al Qaeda and other Islamic militant networks in Europe.

Italian investigators said they were surprised when they discovered that he had placed a cellphone call to one of their own police officers not long after Mr. Nasr disappeared, but made no mention of what had happened, they said. The frustration expressed by the Italians echoes similar sentiments among some counterterrorism officials in other European countries.

In addition to their objections to the American rendition policy, European counterterrorism officials also partly blame a lack of access to terrorism suspects and information held by the United States for their failure to convict a number of their own high-profile terrorism suspects.

"The American system is of little use to us," a senior Italian counterterrorism investigator said. "It's a one-way street. We give them what we have, but we are given no useful information that can help us prosecute people."

Sharing access has become a sore point between American and European officials in several high-profile terrorism cases in Europe, including that of Mounir el-Motassadeq, a suspected associate of several Sept. 11 hijackers. On Feb. 19, 2003, he was convicted in Germany on charges related to the 2001 attacks - the only conviction thus far - but the case crumbled on appeal, and he was released in April 2004. German officials openly blamed American officials for failing to provide crucial evidence. He is being retried.

And the Bush administration has refused to allow the Spanish authorities to interview Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a central Qaeda suspect, to bolster their case against two men on trial in Madrid on charges of helping to plan the 2001 attacks.

The rockiness in the relationship between the Italians and the Americans is a relatively new development in the two countries' counterterrorism efforts. Beginning in 1998, the Italian police had worked closely with the F.B.I. in tracing the Egyptian militant group Gamaa Islamiya within Europe when the two agencies jointly monitored the telephones of a crucial operative based in Milan, officials said.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, several F.B.I. agents arrived in Milan and established a close working relationship with the secret police, officials said.

As early as spring 2002, the Italians tipped off the Americans about Mr. Nasr's activities, Italian investigators said. Methodically, using a mixture of electronic surveillance, wiretaps and surveillance, the Italian police collected evidence that Mr. Nasr was trying to build a jihadist recruitment network with tentacles spreading throughout Europe.

The police and investigators said they had evidence that Mr. Nasr's anti-American speeches and calls to jihad were resonating with young Muslim men who were attending his Islamic center here. Secret listening devices had been placed in Mr. Nasr's home and inside several mosques, officials said.

According to court records, this exchange occurred in one eavesdropped conversation at a Milan mosque, recorded by the Italian secret police:

Unidentified speaker: "We must find money because our objective is to form an Islamic army, which will be known as Force 9."

Mr. Nasr: "How are things going in Germany?"

Unidentified speaker: "We can't complain. There are already 10 of us, and we are also concentrating our efforts on Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Egypt and Turkey. But the hub of the organization remains London."

The Italian investigators shared a transcript of this conversation and others with the Americans, who were growing more concerned about Mr. Nasr's openly militant remarks, investigators said.

At first, the Italian investigators said they had suspected that Mr. Nasr was kidnapped by the Egyptians, possibly with the complicity of some Italian authorities.

"It's a serious breach of Italian law; it's absolutely illegal," said Armando Spataro, Milan's deputy chief prosecutor who led the investigation of Mr. Nasr and the kidnapping inquiry.

Mr. Spataro said he and his colleagues were determined to investigate the kidnapping like any other crime by the book.

It took more than two years, but all the evidence - including cellphone use and the timing of the American officials' arrival and their movements - led the Italians to conclude the kidnapping operation was conducted by the 13 Americans, with the help of six other C.I.A. officials who are still under criminal investigation, they said. Mr. Spataro applied for the arrest warrants in March, and they were signed this week by Judge Chiara Nobili. [why the delay?]

Some former American intelligence officials said in interviews that there might be political motivations behind the warrants. On Saturday, Mr. Spataro declined to comment on any accusations of political bias.

But an Italian judicial official pointed out that Mr. Spataro, 56, is not a member of any political party. He faced accusations of right-wing bias when he led prosecutions of the Red Brigade terrorist organization in the late 1970's and 1980's. Two of his colleagues, the official said, were killed by the Red Brigades.

"I think people in Washington may not understand that in Italy a prosecutor does not choose what to investigate," the official said. "He has a legal obligation to investigate any crime."

Mr. Spataro, in a recent interview, expressed his disdain for the Americans' use of rendition, though he denied that he was motivated by that when he asked a judge to sign the arrest warrants against the C.I.A. officials. "I feel the international community must struggle against terrorism and international terrorist groups in accordance with international laws and the rights of the defendant," he said. "Otherwise, we are giving victory to the terrorists."

The warrant documents, obtained by The New York Times, describe in detail how Mr. Nasr was flown through Germany to Egypt, where he told his family and friends, during phone calls in April 2004, that he was subjected to electroshock treatment and that he had lost the hearing in one ear.

The Italians said their anger and disappointment with the Americans did not end there. They said that when they later asked the Americans about Mr. Nasr's whereabouts, they were told that American intelligence had discovered that he had surfaced somewhere in the Balkans.

On Monday, Judge Nobili is expected to appoint public defenders to represent each of the accused C.I.A. officers and operatives. Under the Italian legal system, it is normal to appoint lawyers for accused criminals, even before they have requested legal assistance.

Once these lawyers are appointed, the judge's 230-page arrest warrant, which includes a full investigative report and the names and personal details of the accused, will become public. Warrants for the arrest of the 13 C.I.A. agents will also be passed on to Interpol, effectively requiring countries around the world to assist the Italian investigation.

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Stephen Grey reported from Milan, and Don Van Natta Jr. from London.

[Moses]

June 27, 2005

Experts Say Trial Unlikely for C.I.A. Operatives
By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON, June 26 - The chances are relatively remote that the 13 people linked to the C.I.A who were ordered arrested by an Italian judge last week will ever stand trial there, experts in international law said Sunday.

The 13 people, charged with illegally seizing an Egyptian cleric on a Milan street two years ago and flying him to Egypt for questioning, are presumed to have left Italy.

If they are indeed Americans and C.I.A. officers and operatives, as described in the arrest warrants, and if they are now in the United States, the American government may in theory be obligated to extradite them. As a practical matter, however, experts said, it is almost inconceivable that the government would turn over agents who had carried out an operation authorized by the United States and meant to combat terrorism.

"There is close to no probability that the United States is going to extradite any of these people to Italy, notwithstanding the letter of any treaty," said Peter J. Spiro, who teaches international law at the University of Georgia. "It's very unlikely that there is going to be any sort of cooperation on this end."

It is not unusual for intelligence operations to violate local laws, but operations like the one at issue here are typically undertaken with at least the tacit blessing of the local government. The government of Silvio Berlusconi has made no official comment on the case.

"If the apprehension and removal, to use those relatively neutral terms, of this individual, were done without the knowledge and authorization of at least some part of the Italian government," said Douglass W. Cassel Jr., who teaches international law at Northwestern University, "then it's a clear violation of international law."

The extradition treaty between the United States and Italy on its face would seem to apply to the crime alleged here. Extradition is required, with few exceptions, where the offense in question gives rise to punishment of more than one year in each country. The13 Americans are accused of the crime of kidnapping, which carries serious penalties in both Italy and the United States.

The treaty contains exceptions for "political and military offenses," but neither exception fits neatly here.

The Egyptian cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, is still missing. His family has said that he phoned from Egypt to say he has been repeatedly tortured in Egyptian custody. Before his disappearance, Mr. Nasr had been under investigation on suspicion of possible links to Al Qaeda.

Whatever the formal terms of the extradition treaty, legal experts agreed, it is all but certain that the American government will decline to turn any intelligence officers or agents over. "If you send a United States citizen overseas to carry out a mission," said Ruth Wedgwood, who teaches international law at Johns Hopkins University, "you are not likely then to abandon him." [ha ha ha!!! - Adam Liptak fails to mention, of course, that Ruth Wedgewood is a notorious neocon, a member of the Defense Policy Board, who promoted the war against Iraq, and promoter of fascism/Patriot Act, etc, in that nest of neocon-fascist Usraeli spooks, Johns Hopkins]

American officials are likely to invoke any available argument to oppose an extradition request, Professor Cassel said. "I could imagine the United States playing games," Professor Cassel said. "If the extradition request came in the name of the false passport, they could say, 'We have no knowledge of such a person.' "

Of the 13 names mentioned in the warrants of people being sought for arrest, research indicates that 11 may be aliases. Public records show that some of the names received Social Security numbers in the past 10 years and that some had addresses that were post office boxes in Virginia that are known to be used by the C.I.A.

But if the accused are in third countries, many of which have their own extradition treaties and other agreements with Italy, their lives could quickly become complicated.

"One could easily reach the point," Professor Cassel said, "where these individuals find it very hard to travel."

The C.I.A.'s practice of rendition - seizing people and sending them abroad for interrogation - has been the subject of mounting international criticism, especially because some of the countries involved are known to use torture, and has caused a deepening rift between the United States and even some of its strongest allies.

But the issuance of the arrest warrants, by Judge Chiara Nobili of Milan, may not be consistent with the wishes of the government of Mr. Berlusconi.

"What may be most surprising to Americans is that in European countries investigating magistrates are quite independent of the executive branch of the government," Professor Wedgwood said. [uh, isn't that the way it is supposed to be here? And in fact, Berlusconi, himself a criminal, has made it more difficult for prosecutors to prosecute any case involving conspiracy/the mob-- do you see how the neocons redefine US democracy with every word they speak? She implies that the Executive should have control over US prosecutions? ]

The legal experts also said the Italian warrants may add fire to the debate over whether the United States should subject itself to international criminal tribunals.

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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Moses]

Italy denies it knew of CIA kidnapping
6/30/2005, 8:42 a.m. ET

By AIDAN LEWIS
The Associated Press  


ROME (AP) — The Italian government denied Thursday it had prior knowledge of the alleged CIA kidnapping of a radical Egyptian cleric in 2003, an operation that has led prosecutors to seek the arrest of 13 purported CIA operatives.

Carlo Giovanardi, minister for relations with parliament, addressed the Senate in response to opposition demands that Italy say whether authorities knew of plans to kidnap the Egyptian, considered an Islamic terrorist.

Italian prosecutors have accused the 13 CIA officials of kidnapping Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, on a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003, and sending him to Egypt, where he reportedly was tortured.

The Egyptian preacher purportedly was seized as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program in which suspected terrorists are transferred to third countries without court approval, where they face interrogation and possible torture.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government has summoned the U.S. ambassador who was expected to meet with Italian officials Friday on the matter, Giovanardi said.

He said the reported operation was never "brought to the attention of the government of the republic or national institutions," often a term used to refer to Italy's intelligence agencies.

Therefore, he said, "it is not even possible" that Italy ever authorized such an operation.

Prosecutors have said they are preparing extradition requests for the 13 CIA operatives and have asked Interpol help in tracing the suspects, all identified as U.S. citizens.

Nasr told his wife in an intercepted cell phone call from Egypt that he was tortured, the Milan prosecutor's office has said. He reportedly was hung upside down and subjected to extreme temperatures and loud noise that damaged his hearing.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome, the CIA in Washington and Egyptian officials have declined to comment.

The Milan prosecutor's office called the imam's disappearance a blow to Italy's own fight against terrorism. He had been under investigation for alleged terrorist activity in Italy at the time of his disappearance.

Responding to Giovanardi, opposition Sen. Tana De Zulueta referred to a report Thursday by[ The Washington Post that said the CIA station chief in Rome had briefed and sought approval from an Italian official before the purported operation, citing three unidentified CIA veterans said to have had knowledge of the operation and a fourth said to have reviewed it after it took place.

One of the veterans claimed in the report that the CIA "told a tiny number of people" about the action. The report said it was unclear how high in the Italian intelligence service the information was shared or whether Berlusconi was made aware.

At De Zulueta's reference to the article, Giovanardi shouted out: "It's false."



Copyright 2005 Associated Press.