Italian Judge Convicts Americans In Rendition Case
An Italian judge convicted 23 Americans in absentia of the kidnapping in 2003 of an Egyptian cleric from Milan. The cleric said he was transferred to an Egyptian jail where he was tortured. The convictions mark the first time "extraordinary rendition" was successfully contested.
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MICHELE NORRIS, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
A group of CIA agents have been convicted in an Italian criminal court. The 23 Americans and two Italian agents are charged with taking part in the controversial practice of extraordinary rendition. It all goes back to the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in broad daylight in Milan. It's the first time CIA agents have been put on trial for rendition.
NORRIS: NPR's Sylvia Poggioli has been following the trial and she joins me now from Milan. Sylvia, the Egyptian cleric, Abu Omar, says he was snatched from the streets of Milan, taken to Egypt, where he says he was tortured repeatedly. In making their case, what did prosecutors say about the Americans role in this?
SYLVIA POGGIOLI: Well, the prosecution said that 26 Americans, all but one identified as CIA agents, together with seven members of the Italian military intelligence agency, carried out the kidnapping. Abu Omar says men who looked and sounded American blindfolded him and took him by plane to Cairo where he says he was tortured in prison. The prosecution presented this as a case of extraordinary rendition, what many human rights activists say is the CIA's outsourcing of torture of prisoners to countries where it's practiced.
Now the prosecution showed that the operation was very sloppy. The CIA suspects were tracked down thanks to cell phone calls made from near the abduction site and hotel credit card payments, as well as tickets for speeding. And the prosecutor said that the agent's carelessness was a sign they believe they could operate with impunity.
NORRIS: The prosecution, in trying to pursue this case, says it was obstructed by the Italian government. What happened?
POGGIOLI: Well, the case encountered really serious obstruction from successive Italian governments, both on the left and the right. Worried about the harm the trial could pose to the U.S.-Italian relations, these governments raised the issue of state secrecy. And last March, the constitutional court ruled that a portion of the prosecution's evidence could not be used because it's classified.
Today, the judge cited state secrecy as the reason why two top Italian defendants were cleared. He also cited diplomatic immunity for the acquittal of three of the American defendants, including the former CIA station chief in Rome Jeff Castelli. But 22 Americans were convicted and given five-year prison sentences. The stiffest sentence, eight years, was given to the former CIA station chief in Milan, Robert Seldon Lady.
NORRIS: The U.S. government is refusing to cooperate with this trial. In fact, today, American officials expressed disappointment with the verdict, and we should explain the Americans were not in court and it sounds like it's unlikely that they'll fulfill their prison sentences.
POGGIOLI: That's very true. The chief prosecutor, Armando Spataro, said he's considering the possibility of asking the Italian government to issue international arrest warrants. That would mean at least that the convicted Americans would not be able to travel outside of the United States.
NORRIS: With these convictions, is this all over now or will there be any further action in this case?
POGGIOLI: Well, this is what we'll have to wait and see. Again, it's up to Spataro to decide whether to seek these international warrants. And he also may appeal the acquittals of the Italian defendants based on classified evidence. But, you know, I think, basically the convictions are being seen here as indictment of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies. Spataro and his Europeans colleagues and anti-terrorism investigators here have always severely criticized practices such as extraordinary renditions as illegal and counterproductive in combating terrorism. Spataro and his colleagues say that in a continent with large Muslim minority communities, illegal practices such as extraordinary renditions end up promoting extremism and undermining faith in the democratic system.
NORRIS: Sylvia, thank you very much.
POGGIOLI: Thank you, Michele.
NORRIS: That was NPR's Sylvia Poggioli speaking to us from Milan.
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Italian Judge Convicts 23 In CIA Rendition Case
Italian Judge Oscar Magi is seen in a Milan, Italy, courtroom on Wednesday. Magi has convicted 23 Americans of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric on a Milan street.
Italian Judge Oscar Magi is seen in a Milan, Italy, courtroom on Wednesday. Magi has convicted 23 Americans of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric on a Milan street.
Heard On 'All Things Considered'
heard on All Things Considered
November 4, 2009
Italian Judge Convicts Americans In Rendition Case
An Italian judge found 23 Americans and two Italians guilty Wednesday in the kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect, delivering the first legal convictions anywhere in the world against people involved in the CIA's extraordinary renditions program.
Human rights groups hailed the decision and pressed President Barack Obama to repudiate the Bush administration's practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries where torture was permitted.
The Obama administration ended the CIA's interrogation program and closed its secret overseas jails in January but has opted to continue the practice of extraordinary renditions.
As long as the verdicts remain in place, the Americans, who were tried in absentia, now cannot travel to Europe without risking arrest.
Despite the convictions capping the nearly three-year Italian trial, several Italian and American defendants — including the two alleged masterminds of the abduction — were acquitted due to either diplomatic immunity or because classified information was stricken by Italy's highest court.
The case has been politically charged from the beginning, with attempts to mislead investigators looking into the cleric's disappearance and derail the judicial proceedings once the trial was under way. But the Italian-American relationship, conditioned on such issues as participation in the Afghan campaign, is unlikely to be hurt by the convictions. The American Civil Liberties Union said the verdicts were the first convictions stemming from the rendition program.
Three Americans were acquitted, including the then-Rome CIA station chief Jeffrey Castelli and two other diplomats formerly assigned to the Rome Embassy, as well as the former head of Italian military intelligence Nicolo Pollari and four other Italian secret service agents.
Only two Italians were in the courtroom to hear the verdict, including Marco Mancini, the former No. 2 at Italian military intelligence, who embraced his lawyer outside the courtroom after he was acquitted.
Former Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady received the top sentence of eight years in prison. The other 22 convicted American defendants, including a former Milan consular official, Sabrina De Sousa and Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph Romano, each received a five-year sentence. Two Italians got three years each as accessories.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the Obama administration was "disappointed about the verdicts."
The State Department is being sued by De Sousa, a former State Department employee who denies she was a CIA agent and who believes she should have been granted diplomatic immunity by U.S. officials. The judge's verdict, however, did not extend diplomatic immunity to consular officials charged.
Mark Zaid, the American lawyer for De Sousa, told The Associated Press in Washington: "The Italian conviction merely confirms the U.S. government's betrayal of our diplomatic and military representatives overseas."
Romano, who was one of only two Americans who received permission to hire his own lawyer, had tried to have the jurisdiction moved to a U.S. military court in the last weeks of the trial.
"We are clearly disappointed by the court's ruling," Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell told a Pentagon press conference Wednesday.
The Americans, all but one identified by prosecutors as CIA agents, were tried in absentia as subsequent Italian governments refused or ignored prosecutors' extradition request — a position that casts doubts on the Italian government's political will to enforce the sentences.
Prosecutor Armando Spataro said he was considering asking Rome to issue international arrest warrants for the fugitive Americans on the strength of the convictions. The government of Silvio Berlusconi, a close ally of President George W. Bush, has previously refused.
The Americans and Italian agents were accused of kidnapping Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, on Feb. 17, 2003, in Milan, then transferring him to U.S. bases in Italy and Germany. He was then moved to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. He has since been released, but was permitted to leave Egypt to attend the trial.
Spataro had sought stiffer sentences ranging from 10 to 13 years in jail, citing a conspiracy between U.S. and Italian secret services to abduct Nasr, who was under surveillance by Italian investigators building their own terror case against him. Nasr was suspected of organizing the movement of would-be suicide bombers to the Middle East, and Spataro noted in his closing arguments that the timing of his CIA-led abduction, as the United States was preparing to invade Iraq, indicated his potential importance.
CIA Director Leon Panetta said at his confirmation hearing in February that the administration would continue the practice of rendition for prisoners captured in the war on terrorism, but promised to get assurances first that prisoners would not be tortured nor have their human rights violated once transferred.
The CIA declined to comment on the convictions.
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