Italy denies role in CIA abduction

Silvio Berlusconi's outgoing government was yesterday forced to deny a role in an alleged CIA abduction after new evidence surfaced pointing to the involvement of a member of Italy's security forces

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, vanished in February 2003. He subsequently claimed, in an intercepted telephone call, that he had been seized and taken to Egypt, where he was jailed and tortured in the presence of US officials before being released. He then disappeared again. His temporary reappearance sparked an inquiry which, last June, led to a Milan judge ordering the arrest of 13 US intelligence agents accused of his abduction. The number of wanted Americans has since climbed to 22.

Yesterday's reports said the Carabiniere had admitted to prosecutors that, as part of the operation, he had agreed to stop Abu Omar on a Milan street and demand to see his papers. A witness told prosecutors the radical cleric then appeared to have been bundled into a van.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1772983,00.html

the article.

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OKNancy
LBN Moderator

BY JOHN CREWDSON
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - The CIA has used European airports and airspace in transporting suspected terrorists captured abroad to third countries for interrogation, the leader of a delegation of European parliamentary investigators said he was told by American officials here this week.

But the leader, Claudio Fava of Italy, said senior State Department officials declined to discuss individual cases or reports that some suspects had been held in clandestine prisons set up by the CIA in East European countries ..

The Bush administration contends that rendition does not violate the international Convention Against Torture, of which the U.S. is a signatory. "We don't agree with this interpretation," Fava said in a telephone interview after returning to Rome on Friday ..

In addition to some senior Italian intelligence officials, sources say Spataro is likely to seek the arrest of at least two senior CIA officials formerly based in Rome ..

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14567229.htm

In more ways than one. Some are doing it for financial gains and incentives. Others do it because they have preexisting interests which involve, well, financial gains and incentives. Add some good ole racism, and sprinkle some barbarism on top, and there ya go!

.. role in the Maher Arar case, and concluded that in fact it was possible that the spooks were only minimally regulated and that the government MIGHT have had little knowledge of clandestine activities.

I could, of course, be wrong -- but governments can be complicated entities, full of contradictions and turf battles, and the facts about European government involvement may not be simple to summarize ...