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Saturday, June 09, 2007

‘CIA secret prisoner’ trial starts in Italy

‘CIA secret prisoner’ trial starts in Italy
By Tony Barber in Rome and Daniel Dombey in London
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: June 8 2007 13:48 | Last updated: June 8 2007 17:32


The spectre of CIA abductions of terrorist suspects returned to haunt George W. Bush Friday night as the US president flew into Rome hours after an Italian court began trying 26 Americans on charges of kidnapping a militant Egyptian imam.

The Milan trial opened as a Council of Europe investigator released a report he said proved beyond doubt that the Central Intelligence Agency had run secret prisons in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2005.

Dick Marty, a Swiss senator, also accused Germany and Italy of obstructing his efforts to dig out the facts about the CIA’s operations.

Mr Bush acknowledged last year that terrorist suspects had been held in prisons outside the US.

The trial could throw embarrassing light on Italian authorities, particularly the degree of their co-operation in the abduction.

The imam says he was tortured after being spirited into captivity in Egypt.

Italian prosecutors allege that all but one of the 26 American defendants were CIA operatives involved in the “extraordinary rendition” programme launched by the Bush administration after the September 2001 attacks on the US.

None of the 26 is in Italy, and the US has made clear it will never hand them over for prosecution.

The trial’s timing is unfortunate for US and Italian governments. Although adjourned by the judge yestrerday, the case has provided a focus for Italian critics of Mr Bush’s visit at a time when relations between the two countries have run into problems.

Mr Bush is due to hold talks in Rome today with Romano Prodi, prime minister, whose centre-left government contains a few leftists who view Mr Bush as an imperialist warmonger.

Prosecutors say Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, was abducted on a Milan street in February 2003, driven to a US airbase in northern Italy, flown to a US base in Germany and taken to Egypt for interrogation.

Before his disappearance, Italy’s counter-terrorism forces were keeping Abu Omar under surveillance because of his alleged activities in recruiting and funding Islamic militants.

The government has asked Italy’s supreme court to throw out the indictments and says that Armando Spataro, chief prosecutor, broke the law as he gathered his evidence.

Seven Italians are also on trial, including Nicolò Pollari, former head of Italy’s military intelligence service.

Mr Pollari denies that he did anything illegal.

Immediately after the trial opened, the judge, Oscar Magi, rejected a request by a lawyer for the Italian defendants that the hearing be closed to reporters and the public. The judge said such a request could be granted only if the government presented a formal argument that the trial risked revealing state secrets.

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