Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Il NYT sul rapimento in Italia di Abu Omar

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/international/europe/25milan.html?ei=5040&
en=a869f4ac7ef8a037&ex=1120363200&partner=MOREOVERNEWS&pagewanted=print
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.

 comment on the warrants.
Con tutte le idiozie che dice sugli argomenti più disparati, adesso che
ce n'è uno serio sta zitto?
-- 
Luca Logi - Firenze - Italy        e-mail: 
ll...@dada.it

 ce n'è uno serio sta zitto?
Gia' detto,"fate come se foste a casa vostra" :)   
-- 
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