Associated Press
CAIRO: A Muslim preacher is snatched off the streets of an Italian city – purportedly by CIA agents – and whisked off to his homeland, Egypt. There he all but vanishes for more than three years.
The abduction of Osama Hassan Mustafa Nasr, known as Abu Omar, is one of the few known cases of supposed extraordinary rendition – the secret CIA program of apprehending terror suspects and sending them to other countries where some are allegedly tortured.
The Bush administration went public earlier this fall about other aspects of the war on terror – in particular the existence of secret CIA prisons. But the United States has remained largely silent on renditions, leaving the program shrouded in secrecy. Egypt also has said little about Abu Omar s seizure or jailing.
What s known has come, instead, from an investigation by an Italian prosecutor in Milan who is seeking the arrest of 26 Americans in the case – all but one thought to be CIA agents. The prosecutor said last week that he would decide soon whether to also indict Italy s spy chief for allegedly collaborating with the Americans.
Some think a trial in the abduction could uncover high-level collusion between the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi, then in power, and the US administration.
Italian prosecutors say the kidnapping on Feb. 17, 2003, was conducted by CIA agents with help from Italian agents, calling it a breach of Italian sovereignty. But Berlusconi denied his government and Italy s secret services were informed or took part; the question of whether Italy was told of plans to seize Abu Omar has been described as an Italian state secret.
According to Italian officials, the 43-year-old cleric fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia and was suspected of recruiting fighters for radical Islamic causes. But his Egyptian lawyer, Montasser Al-Zayat, said Abu Omar had only traveled to Jordan, Yemen, Albania and Germany before entering Italy illegally in 1997.
Either way, he has become one of the few public faces of the secret program.
At a September briefing in Washington, a senior Bush administration official who discussed the rendition program anonymously said that about 96 people had been held secretly by the CIA in the last few years. Most were freed, transferred to the US military for trial or sent to be held in other countries, the official said. He added that the United States had sought assurances that countries involved would not employ torture.
Abu Omar s case began in February 2003 when the cleric was abducted off a Milan street about 50 m from a mosque where he preached, Al-Zayat told The Associated Press in Cairo.
A van pulled up and an American-looking man – he was fair-skinned and blond – got out and stopped him, Al-Zayat said.
The man, speaking English with an American accent, told Abu Omar he was a policeman and flashed an identity card but too quickly for him to really see it and then demanded his passport, the lawyer said.
Two Italian-looking men then forced Abu Omar into a car, covered his face and drove him to an airfield, Al-Zayat added. It was a joint US-Italian field near Venice, and a 90-minute flight took him to a US base in Ramstein, Germany. A group of masked people in special forces-type uniforms then put the cleric in overalls and taped his mouth before a second plane flew him to Egypt.
For the next 14 months, Abu Omar was interrogated and tortured while he was asked about contacts with Egyptian religious extremists abroad, the lawyer said.
Abu Omar was freed in spring 2004 and returned to his native Alexandria on Egypt s Mediterranean coast. Three weeks later, he was arrested again for violating the terms of his release by talking about his torture in detention, al-Zayat said.
He added that phone calls in which Abu Omar described his life in jail to friends and his wife in Italy, apparently monitored by Italian authorities, also seemed to be the thread that led prosecutors to open their investigation.
Al-Zayat was retained by Abu Omar s friends at the Islamic Cultural Center in Milan soon after the cleric disappeared.
But he did not meet his client until last April when the Italian judiciary requested Abu Omar s testimony; an Egyptian official acknowledged at the time that the cleric was in custody in Egypt.
Since then, Al-Zayat has visited Abu Omar about twice a month. The cleric s wife also was permitted to visit him in July. He has been held in solitary confinement at a prison on the outskirts of Cairo most of the time, after first being interrogated for months at state security facilities.
But recently he was moved to a police station in Alexandria in a possible sign he could be released soon, the lawyer said.
No charges have ever been brought against him.
The only Egyptian official to have publicly confirmed his country took part in renditions was Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. He told NBC s Meet the Press last year that I don t know the exact number, but I know that people have been sent to Egypt. He would not discuss specific cases.
Bahey El Din Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, noted it s not surprising that Egypt – which international human rights groups say routinely uses torture and holds thousands of prisoners without charge – would be involved in the rendition program.
It is surely a service to the United States, he said.
The US does not dirty its hands with torture.
