Italian spies to take stand at CIA kidnapping trial

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Source: AFP

MILAN (AFP) — Italian secret service officials were to begin answering charges of colluding with their US counterparts in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian imam from a Milan street.

The abduction was part of the CIA's covert "secret rendition" programme under which terror suspects were transferred outside the judicial process to third countries known to practise torture.

The former head of Italian military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, who was forced to quit over the affair, is among the seven Italian defendants in the trial, two of whom are accused only of aiding and abetting the abduction.

Successive Italian governments have declined to seek the extradition of the 26 US defendants in the case, 25 CIA agents and a US air force colonel, who are being tried in absentia ...

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hWzOh7PKvyJe0c4l08ZSYyIEDqkA

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1. Ex-top Italian Spy Denies Involvement In CIA Kidnapping

MILAN (AFP)--The former head of Italian military intelligence Wednesday denied at a landmark trial any role in the CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian imam from a Milan street six years ago.

"I am totally outside of the events under discussion," Nicolo Pollari told the court, adding that documents that could prove his innocence were protected by state secrecy laws.

"The documents show irrefutably that... I never gave any moral, material or any other support to the crime," said Pollari, who had to resign from the head of the military intelligence arm SISMI over the affair.

The six other Italian defendants in the case took the stand but refused to answer any questions put by lead prosecutor Armando Spataro, saying they were protected by state secrecy laws ...

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200905270858dowjonesdjonline000595&title=ex-top-italian-spy-denies-involvement-in-cia-kidnapping

[bushmeister0]

2. As I recall, the CIA station chief at the time was soon to retire and had bought a house in Milan.

Since this Spataro fellow came along, though, Robert Sheldon Lady has been a fugitive from Italian justice and is presently hiding out in the US.

Here's the most important part of this story:

"Spataro had been building a potential terrorism case against Abu Omar for months before the kidnapping and had secured convictions of a number of his acquaintances."

I guess, sending this guy to jail along with his associates wasn't good enough for the CIA. I'm sure they learned a lot by torturing him.

[Wednesdays]

3. K&R

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