A prosecutor has asked Italy s new justice minister to request the extradition of more than 20 CIA agents over the alleged kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in 2003, a judicial source said on Thursday. Prosecutors had already lodged a request for the extradition of 22 suspected U.S. agents with the government of conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi but it was rejected. Berlusconi s government lost a national election in April to the center left led by Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Two Italian intelligence chiefs have also been arrested in a probe into an alleged extraordinary rendition – the kidnapping of a terrorism suspect for secret questioning in a third country. Prosecutors say a CIA-led team seized Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, off a Milan street, and drove him to a U.S. military base in Aviano, northern Italy, from where he was flown to Egypt. Nasr says interrogators tortured him there. In July, a judge issued arrest warrants for four more suspected spies and one American who worked at the Aviano base. Milan s chief prosecutor Mario Blandini added their names to the extradition request. Italian investigators accuse Nasr of having ties to Al-Qaeda and recruiting combatants for Iraq, according to court documents.
The head of Italy s military intelligence agency on Wednesday defended himself and colleagues being investigated for their possible role in the alleged CIA kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in Milan. Nicolo Pollari told a closed-door meeting of the Senate defense committee that the Sismi intelligence agency had nothing to do with illegal acts and would not break the law to help foreign agents. The comments, relayed to reporters by the committee s chairman, were Pollari s first known response since prosecutors questioned him on Saturday over Sismi s possible role helping the CIA abduct a Muslim cleric in Milan and fly him to Egypt. Pollari s No. 2 and another official were arrested this month and held for more than a week. Gen. Pollari said calmly that our secret services did not violate the law, even in situations that can be defined as border-line, Sen. Sergio De Gregorio, the defense committee s chairman, told reporters. De Gregorio added that although Sismi cooperated with foreign agents, it would not do so with projects that were against the law.
Foreign Minister Massimo D Alema said that he intended to free agents from restrictions of state secrecy so that they could collaborate with magistrates. But, speaking before the lower house of parliament, he also said he wanted to avoid damaging the operations of the Sismi spy agency and avoid leaks to reporters, something that has accompanied every step of the Nasr investigation so far. De Gregorio suggested that Pollari would be better able to protect himself in the investigation if he were able to present classified information to magistrates. I think that if Gen. Pollari was free from state secrecy, he would be able to discuss things that relate to secrets that our heads of state are aware of, he said, answering a question about Nasr s abduction. He did not elaborate. Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister at the time of the abduction, has also denied any role and compared magistrates to terrorists for locking up intelligence agency officials meant to protect the country. Any proof of Italian involvement would confirm one of the chief accusations made by Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty in a report last month that European governments colluded with the United States in secret prisoner transfers. Reuters
