Title: Italy fire spymaster for aiding CIA
Bridget - November 21, 2006 10:17 AM (GMT)
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| Italy fires spymaster accused of aiding CIA kidnappers Tuesday, November 21, 2006 ROME: The head of Italy's SISMI military intelligence agency, accused of helping the CIA abduct an Egyptian imam in 2003, was fired on Monday. SISMI chief Nicolo Pollari had for months fended off accusations of complicity in the kidnapping of Osama Mustafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, from a Milan street in February 2003. Abu Omar was reportedly taken to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured under suspicion of terrorist links. His lawyer says he is being been held in a Cairo prison without charges. In confessions made public in July, several SISMI officials described active collaboration with a CIA unit in the kidnapping. The seizure was thought to be among scores of secret abductions of suspected terrorists around the world since the attacks of September 11 in the US government's so-called "extraordinary rendition" program. Pollari was replaced after a special Cabinet meeting, along with the heads of the civilian secret service agency SISDE and CESIS, which coordinates the country's intelligence services. The SISDE and CESIS heads are not under investigation in the alleged abduction, and the government insisted the replacements were all part of a broader intelligence overhaul. Pollari, 63, has so far not given a detailed defense, saying he cannot divulge state secrets. Prosecutors are expected to seek a formal indictment by the end of November. The sacked spy chief is also closely associated with Pio Pompa, a SISMI computer expert accused of seeking to smear center-left leader Romano Prodi, whose coalition won hard-fought elections in April. Pompa was allegedly on the payroll of a prominent right-wing journalist, Renato Farina, and conducted illegal wiretaps on left-wing journalists and magistrates. Abu Omar's kidnapping has caused a strain in US-Italian relations for months. Prosecutors have issued preventative arrest warrants against 25 CIA agents and a US Air Force colonel in the case. If a judge authorizes a trial, it would be the first criminal prosecution anywhere in the world for "renditions." The 26 are already the subject of a Europe-wide arrest warrant. |
numeral - January 8, 2007 12:48 PM (GMT)
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| Milan CIA Abduction Case Starts Amid Service Overhaul By Gregory Viscusi Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- A judge in Milan this week will hold the first hearings on whether to press charges against 35 U.S. and Italian intelligence agents for kidnapping an Egyptian cleric, while Italian lawmakers will start debating the first overhaul of the country's intelligence service in 30 years. The proposed changes to Italy's intelligence services, which would better define where and how they can operate and impose more oversight, were sparked in part by the 2003 abduction where Italian agents allegedly helped Central Intelligence Agency operatives seize the cleric and send him to Egypt. ``The recent scandals give the impression of a country with limited sovereignty and where the services are used for political means,'' said Fabrice Rizzoli, a researcher at the Paris-based French Center for Intelligence Research. ``It's normal that the new government wants to get a better grip on the services.'' In November, the government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi, which took office in June, replaced the heads of Sismi, the intelligence arm of the military, Sisde, the intelligence unit of the Interior Ministry, as well as Cesis, a body that compiles information from both. Nicolo Pollari, the replaced head of Sismi, and the agency's second-highest official, Marco Mancini, are accused by Milan prosecutor Armando Spataro of aiding the CIA in finding and kidnapping Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr. Abu Omar, as the cleric is usually called, was flown to Egypt where he was tortured during questioning about terrorism links and is still in custody there, prosecutors say. Police Investigation The abduction interrupted an Italian police investigation into Abu Omar and his contacts, Spataro, 58, said in a telephone interview last month. Pollari is innocent, said his lawyer, Titta Madia, in a telephone interview. Mancini is also innocent and declined the CIA's requests for help in the kidnapping, his lawyer, Luigi Panella, said by telephone. The other accused Italians are low level policemen or agents. The 26 accused Americans have left Italy, prosecutors said. The U.S. doesn't comment on specific cases against presumed terrorists. The judge who will decide whether to pursue the trial, Caterina Interlandi, will hold her first hearing Jan. 9 in Milan, said Madia, Pollari's lawyer. The first day is likely to cover procedural matters and his client won't attend, Madia said. The U.S. agents clearly received some help from Sismi, said Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, whose government was not in power at the time. Unilateral Action ``I can't imagine CIA agents in an allied and friendly country doing something like that unilaterally,'' Amato said in an interview. ``That's why I find it credible what Spataro is now finding out, that there was cooperation with the Italians. Whether the head of Sismi was involved is something for the judge to decide.'' Prosecutors say the case is an example of the U.S. policy of ``rendition,'' where terrorism suspects are shipped to countries with looser rules on using torture, such as Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan. Italy, the UK, Germany, Sweden, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Turkey cooperated with the U.S.'s rendition program even though it broke the laws of those countries, the Council of Europe said in a report issued in June. ``The case of Abu Omar is a formally legal activity for the Americans,'' Amato said. ``They call it rendition and there are acts of the president authorizing these operations. In Italian terms this is a kidnapping which bluntly violates our criminal code.'' Berlusconi Government Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government denied it or Italy's intelligence services had knowledge of or a role in Abu Omar's kidnapping. Whether the U.S. had informed Italian officials is irrelevant, Amato said. ``Let us imagine that they had involved the Pope, the prime minister, the president of the republic and everyone,'' Amato said. ``This would not have changed the illegal nature of the action.'' Unlike the U.S. or France, where prosecutors can decline to pursue cases, Italian prosecutors are obliged to pursue any alleged crime brought to their attention, said Rizzoli, the French researcher. The government has no legal right to stop a judicial investigation. The Italian parliament's proposed overhaul of the intelligence services will be debated as soon as parliament resumes Jan. 16, said Filippo Rossi, a spokesman for Claudio Scajola, the president of the committee that drew up the bill. The bill's preamble says Sismi and Sisde have poorly defined roles that led to ``overlap and conflict.'' The bill would change Sismi's name to External Information Service (ISE) and Sisde to Internal Information Service (ISI) to better define where they can operate. Under the current legislation dating from 1977, Sismi deals with threats to military targets and Sisde with civilian targets, a distinction that lost its relevance after the Cold War. To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Rome at gviscusi@bloomberg.net . |
freedomfiles - January 9, 2007 08:45 AM (GMT)
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| Evidence shows Milan CIA chief opposed cleric's kidnapping By John Crewdson / Chicago Tribune January 8, 2007 http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/world/16408565.htm MILAN, Italy - The CIA chief in this northern Italian city opposed the intelligence agency's planned abduction of a radical Muslim cleric as ill-conceived and counter-productive, according to evidence gathered by prosecutors here. Had the abduction of Abu Omar been stopped, the CIA would have been spared what has become one of the most embarrassing episodes in its post-Sept. 11 war on terror. And Robert Seldon Lady, the now-retired Milan CIA chief, would likely still be living with his wife in the Italian villa they bought with their life savings, high on a hillside overlooking a lush green valley with long, straight rows of vines that provide the grapes for Asti's famous sparkling wines. Instead, Lady is a fugitive from Italian justice, one of 25 past and present CIA operatives charged with the kidnapping of Abu Omar, whose given name is Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. |
Bridget - January 9, 2007 12:12 PM (GMT)
This is a long article worth reading to understand the machinations of the CIA and the background of Abu Omar, and some of the facts behind the Italian prosecution of the CIA operatives.
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| Abducted imam aided CIA ally Last month, Italian authorities charged 13 CIA operatives with kidnapping an Islamic cleric known as Abu Omar. Now former Albanian intelligence officials reveal that the imam was once an informant valued by the CIA. By John Crewdson and Tom Hundley, Tribune correspondents. John Crewdson reported from Rome and Washington, and Tom Hundley reported from Milan and Tirana. Altin Raxhimi also contributed from Tirana Published July 3, 2005 MILAN, Italy -- Among the multiple mysteries swirling around the abduction of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr in Italy, one stands out as by far the most perplexing. Why would the U.S. government go to elaborate lengths to seize a 39-year-old Egyptian who, according to former Albanian intelligence officials, was once the CIA's most productive source of information within the tightly knit group of Islamic fundamentalists living in exile in Albania?  Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr Neither the Bush administration nor the CIA has acknowledged any role in the operation. But U.S. government officials privately paint Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, as a dangerous terrorist who once plotted to kill the Egyptian foreign minister and was worthy of an audacious daylight abduction involving more than 20 operatives, weeks of planning and hundreds of thousands of dollars. One senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition that she not be identified, asserted: "The world's a better place with this guy off the streets." But evidence gathered by prosecutors here, who have charged 13 CIA operatives with Abu Omar's kidnapping, indicates that the abduction was a bold attempt to turn him back into the informer he once was. As a result, Italian-American relations are at their lowest point in years, 13 Americans are fugitives from Italian justice, and Milanese prosecutors and police, who had been closely monitoring Abu Omar and knew nothing about his planned abduction, are furious. "Instead of having an investigation against terrorists, we are investigating this CIA kidnapping," a senior prosecution official fumed last week. According to the prosecutor's application for the 13 warrants, when Abu Omar reached Cairo on a CIA-chartered aircraft, he was taken straight to the Egyptian interior minister. If he agreed to inform for the Egyptian intelligence service, Abu Omar "would have been set free and accompanied back to Italy," the document said. Alternatively, the senior official said, the Americans may have hoped the Egyptians could learn something by interrogating Abu Omar about planned resistance to the impending war on Iraq. Abu Omar refused to inform, according to the document, and spent the next 14 months in an Egyptian prison facing "terrible tortures." After a brief release in April 2004, he was imprisoned again. The source of the prosecution's information is Mohammed Reda, another Egyptian imam living in Milan and one of the first people Abu Omar called during his brief release. Asked to assess Reda's credibility, the prosecution official asserted that "in this case, he had no reason to lie. And when he made his first statements, he was unaware he was being intercepted" by a police wiretap on his cell phone. Abu Omar was first offered a chance to inform in Albania in 1995. According to former officials of ShIK, the Albanian National Intelligence Service, he was far from reluctant. At the behest of the CIA, ShIK had created an anti-terrorist unit that, former ShIK officials said, was essentially an arm of the CIA. In those years, the Albanian government, increasingly worried that it might be playing host to Islamic terrorists, accorded the CIA far more leeway than most other countries to operate within its borders. CIA officer's role The real boss of the anti-terror squad, according to its former second-ranking official, Astrit Nasufi, was a CIA officer known as Mike who worked in the American Embassy in Tirana, the Albanian capital. Mike, who spoke fluent Arabic, set up the ShIK unit's office and taught Nasufi and the dozen or so other ShIK operatives about Islamic terrorism, how to conduct interviews and how to monitor suspects. The CIA even provided the badly paid ShIK agents with better clothes and food for their families, Nasufi said. The ShIK agents came to idolize Mike, who according to Nasufi was killed in a car crash in the U.S. in 1996 after completing his Albanian assignment. When the ShIK agents later visited the CIA in Virginia for a training course, they visited Mike's grave at Arlington. Until they saw the headstone, they hadn't known his last name. ShIK sprang into action in August 1995, when the Egyptian foreign minister, Amr Moussa, visited Albania. There was no evidence that an assassination plot against Moussa was in the works. But two months before, exiled Egyptian fundamentalists had tried to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during Mubarak's visit to Ethiopia. Nasufi and Flamur Gjymisha, the chief of ShIK's First Intelligence Directorate, said Mike told ShIK to detain a dozen or so Egyptians living in Tirana who might pose a threat to Moussa. A few days before Moussa's arrival, ShIK got the pickup list. It included seven or eight members of Jamaat al Islamiya ("The Islamic Group") and a few from another Egyptian exile group, the Islamic Jihad, which later merged with Al Qaeda. Nasufi said Abu Omar, an Egyptian, had been living in Albania for four years and working for a Muslim charity, the Human Relief and Construction Agency (HRCA). His name was not on the pickup list, Nasufi said, because "no previous suspicion" had been attached to him, and he had never been mentioned in the CIA's requests for information about individuals in Tirana. The CIA also gave ShIK the license plates of four cars, including a dark green Land Rover that allegedly belonged to the HRCA. "We started looking for the cars on Aug. 27 in the morning," recalled Nasufi. By midafternoon they had found the Land Rover in a parking lot near the former Institute for Physical Education. When ShIK checked the registration, the person listed as responsible for the vehicle was Osama Nasr--Abu Omar. According to Nasufi, the Land Rover looked like it hadn't been driven for months. Nevertheless, two CIA operatives arrived from the U.S. and checked the vehicle for any trace of explosives. Nothing was found, Nasufi said, but the CIA told ShIK to pick up Abu Omar anyway. Around 10 p.m. on Aug. 27, Albanian police showed up at Abu Omar's Tirana apartment and led him away. He was held for about 10 days, Nasufi said. What was essentially an accidental arrest proved to be a great coup for ShIK and its CIA overseers. Abu Omar was taken to the main police station for interrogation by Nasufi and another ShIK agent, Ferdinand Nuku. Nasufi described Abu Omar as "smooth and calm, probably because he wasn't under pressure from us. He was never aggressive with us. We didn't use a lot of physical pressure on him. He was well-behaved and gentle." At first Abu Omar refused to talk, then abruptly changed his mind. "After a week, we had a full file," said Nasufi, who doesn't remember Abu Omar as a particularly zealous Muslim, recalling that he interrupted the interviews to pray only twice in 10 days. To ShIK, Abu Omar admitted he had fled Egypt because he belonged to Jamaat al Islamiya, and that Jamaat had about 10 people working for three Islamic charities in Albania, including Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society. Since Sept. 11, 2001, some offices of both of those charities have been labeled terrorist supporters by the Bush administration. Abu Omar told the ShIK agents that, for Jamaat members like himself, Albania was a "safe hotel"--a country where fundamentalist Muslims believed they could live without fear of political repression. For that reason, Abu Omar insisted, the Jamaat members in Albania had no plans to kill Amr Moussa. Such a move would have cost Jamaat its haven, Abu Omar explained. Abu Omar was the first Arab willing to inform for ShIK, and ShIK was amazed by its good fortune. So, Nasufi said, was the CIA. After each interview, Nuku gave handwritten notes to the U.S. Embassy's new CIA representative, "Francis," who had replaced "Mike." "It was the first case that we provided the Americans with totally independent information," Nasufi said. "We became a main player for the first time. We weren't just tools. We gave them a clear idea of who was monitoring the U.S. Embassy for [Jamaat], who was coming in and out of the country."[/b] At the time, the CIA in the Balkans was primarily interested in keeping tabs on the former mujahedeen joining the Bosnian Muslims in their struggle against Serbia and Croatia. The CIA, Nasufi said, lauded ShIK for its intelligence coup. Nasufi said Abu Omar was believed to be credible. Of the 100 or so items of information he offered, 20 or 30 were confirmed by information ShIK received from the CIA. After Abu Omar was allowed to return home, the collaboration deepened. He talked to ShIK about Jamaat branches in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy--including Milan, where Jamaat had close relations with the Institute for Islamic Studies on Via Quaranta. ShIK had a strict rule against offering money to informers, Nasufi said, but ShIK did offer Abu Omar help in mediating a dispute with the landlord of the bakery he had just opened, and smoothing out problems with his residence permit that had arisen from his marriage to an Albanian, Marsela Glina. Abu Omar gratefully accepted ShIK's help, Nasufi said. But a few weeks after he began collaborating with ShIK, Abu Omar, Marsela and their daughter Sara suddenly left Albania. Hasty departure Abu Omar's hasty departure struck ShIK as odd, Nasufi recalled, because the Egyptian had seemed so willing to cooperate and had appeared happy that ShIK was offering him assistance with his problems. When Flamur Gjymisha asked Ferdinand Nuku what had happened to Abu Omar, Nuku said the CIA had told him Abu Omar was living in Germany. Abu Omar, without his Albanian family, surfaced again in Rome in 1997, where he was accorded political refugee status. Moving north to Milan, he gravitated to the Islamic institute on Via Quaranta, which has a reputation as the most radical Islamic outpost in Italy. There Abu Omar preached fiery sermons and served for a time as the deputy chief imam. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks led to the U.S.-led coalition's military offensive in Afghanistan, his sermons grew even more hostile toward the U.S. According to what the police were hearing on his telephone, Abu Omar also was helping recruit Muslims to fight against the coalition in Afghanistan. A Milan magistrate recently ruled in an unrelated case that recruiting fighters for foreign battles is not illegal under Italy's anti-terrorist laws. Nor, it seems, did the police have much evidence that Abu Omar had been plotting terrorist attacks. When Milan prosecutors applied for an arrest warrant for Abu Omar, the only charges listed were "association with terrorists," aiding the preparation of false documents and abetting illegal immigration. Although police had grounds for Abu Omar's arrest, the tap on his phone and the microphones hidden in his apartment and the Via Quaranta mosque made him far more valuable as a window into the comings and goings of other jihadists. "When you find an important member of an organization," the senior prosecution official said, "you don't arrest him immediately, you follow him. When Nasr disappeared in February [2003], our investigation came to a standstill." What mystified the Italian authorities was why the CIA would want to take Abu Omar out of circulation--especially since they were sharing with the CIA the fruits of their electronic surveillance of Abu Omar--and why the Egyptians would want him back. Some American officials maintain Abu Omar's abduction was necessary because of his suspected involvement in a plot to bomb a bus that carried the children of foreign diplomats attending the American School of Milan. But the senior prosecution official said, "I have never seen any evidence. I don't think there was a bomb plot against the American School." Indeed, a conversation recorded by police on April 24, 2002, about eight months before his abduction, appears to portray Abu Omar as something of a force for moderation. When an unidentified Egyptian man says he wants to attack "all establishments or Israeli interests . . . anything that belongs to the Jews, in all the world," Abu Omar tells him, with a laugh, "Use your head!" On June 6, Abu Omar is overheard speaking with an unidentified South African man who seems to be talking about car bombs. "Who has made them?" Abu Omar asks. "Who? Who?" "One of the Palestinian brothers," replies the South African. "The Palestinian?" Abu Omar asks. "Yes," the man answers. "The one who is called the machine . . . the one who is in Albania." After a pause, Abu Omar replies, "No, no, the car is not the proper tool. We don't need the car. . . . " |
Bridget - January 31, 2007 01:15 AM (GMT)
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| Spy chief denies role in CIA 'kidnap' January 29 2007 at 07:40PM By Ilaria Polleschi Milan - Italy’s former spy chief told a Milan court on Monday he felt like a scapegoat as a judge considered indicting him along with CIA agents on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect in Milan, his lawyer said. Nicolo Pollari, who denies wrongdoing, was head of military intelligence agency SISMI in February 2003, when prosecutors believe a CIA team grabbed Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and flew him to Egypt. Nasr says he was tortured in Egyptian custody. Judge Caterina Interlandi must decide if there is enough evidence for a trial. If so, it would be the first criminal procedure over renditions, one of the most controversial aspects of US President George W. Bush’s global "war on terrorism". The suspects are 26 Americans, most believed to be CIA agents, and six Italians, including Pollari — who became the first defendant to testify since hearings began on January 9. Pollari reiterated his innocence in court but complained in a written statement that he could not prepare a reasonable defence since information clearing his name was classified. In closed-door testimony, Pollari said he was a scapegoat, one of his lawyers said. Interlandi said she would consider the issue and adjourned the hearings until February 6. Pollari wants Italy’s current and former prime ministers, Romano Prodi and Silvio Berlusconi to testify on his behalf in court, since he is bound by state secrecy restrictions. "They can tell how Gen. Pollari opposed, with clear actions and absolute resolve, any hypothesis of plans for illegal activities including those related to the fight against terrorism," Pollari’s lawyers said in a statement delivered to the court. Washington acknowledges secret transfers of terrorism suspects to third countries, but denies torturing suspects or handing them to countries that do. Nasr says he was tortured by Egyptian agents using electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse. He says he was offered freedom if he collaborated with authorities, but refused. He is still being held in Egyptian custody. |
numeral - February 13, 2007 08:46 AM (GMT)
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| Egyptian cleric allegedly abducted by CIA in Italy released By Salah Nasrawi ASSOCIATED PRESS 6:27 a.m. February 12, 2007 CAIRO, Egypt – An Egyptian Muslim preacher allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents off the streets of an Italian city and taken to Egypt has been released, his lawyer and a security official said Monday. Attorney Montasser al-Zayat said Osama Hassan Mustafa Nasr, known as Abu Omar, was ordered freed Sunday by an Egyptian State Security Court that found his detention in Egypt “unfounded.” Al-Zayat said Nasr was released at a police station in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed the court's ruling and Abu Omar's release. “He was freed and he is now at his family home Alexandria,” al-Zayat told The Associated Press. “I talked to him, and he is fine, but said he wants to have some rest.” Nasr was allegedly abducted from a Milan street in February 2003 and flown out of Italy and taken to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. The security official said Nasr will remain in Egypt and will not be sent back to Italy. Al-Zayat said the Egyptian court made the ruling after Nasr filed a lawsuit against the Interior Ministry accusing it of unlawful detention. Italian prosecutors say Nasr was kidnapped on Feb. 17, 2003, by CIA agents with help from Italian agents, in a breach of Italian sovereignty. According to Italian officials, the cleric fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia and was suspected of recruiting fighters for radical Islamic causes. But al-Zayat said Abu Omar had only traveled to Jordan, Yemen, Albania and Germany before entering Italy illegally in 1997. No charges have ever been brought against Nasr. But Italian courts continued a preliminary hearing on Monday to decide whether to indict 26 Americans and five Italian intelligence officials on criminal charges in Milan. Italian investigators said they believe the abduction was overseen by the CIA's station chief in Rome and orchestrated by officials assigned to the U.S. Embassy there. A trial would be the first criminal prosecution involving the CIA's extraordinary “rendition” program, in which terror suspects were secretly transferred for interrogation to third countries where critics say they may face torture. Italian prosecutor Armando Spataro said Nasr's release would have little affect on the preliminary hearing, because in the Italian system the injured party cannot be called to testify at this stage. But defense lawyer Guido Meroni, who is representing six American agents, said the release may help his clients as it may produce more definitive information on who was involved. He said evidence tying his clients to the abduction was circumstantial – including phone records and their presence at hotels in Italy before the abduction. Egyptian officials have not publicly acknowledged Nasr's abduction or his detention in Egypt. They also have not publicly confirmed his country took part in renditions. But Egypt's Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif told NBC's “Meet the Press” in 2005 that “people have been sent” to Egypt but would not say how many or discuss their cases. Associated Press writer Colleen Barry in Milan, Italy, contributed to this report. |
Bridget - February 16, 2007 12:23 PM (GMT)
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| Last Updated: Friday, 16 February 2007, 12:03 GMT Italy orders CIA kidnapping trial  Osama Mustafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, in a file photo Mr Hassan says he was tortured for four years in Egypt An Italian judge has ordered 26 US citizens - most of them CIA agents - to stand trial over the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003. Osama Mustafa Hassan was allegedly seized there by the CIA and flown to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. Five Italians were also indicted by the judge, including Italy's ex-military intelligence chief, Nicolo Pollari. The case would be the first criminal trial over the secret US practice known as "extraordinary rendition". During rendition, people suspected of involvement in terror activities would be taken from one country and flown to another, where many claim they were tortured. The Italian government has yet to decide whether or not it wishes to request the extradition of the indicted men and women, who are believed to have returned to the US. Those indicted include the former station chief of CIA operations in Milan, Robert Seldon Lady, who says his opposition to the proposal to kidnap the Imam was over-ruled. He is reported to have returned to the US, leaving behind a villa in Italy which he bought with his life savings. |
The Antagonist - February 19, 2007 12:08 AM (GMT)
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| Italy orders CIA kidnapping trial An Italian judge has ordered 26 US citizens - most of them CIA agents - to stand trial over the kidnap of an Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003. Osama Mustafa Hassan was allegedly seized by the CIA and flown to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. Seven Italians were also indicted, including Italy's ex-military intelligence chief, Nicolo Pollari. The case would be the first criminal trial over the secret US practice known as "extraordinary rendition". During rendition, people suspected of involvement in terror activities are taken from one country and flown to another, where many claim they are tortured. Extradition decision Most of the indicted US citizens are believed to have returned home from Italy. The Italian government has yet to decide whether or not it wishes to request their extradition. Prime Minister Romano Prodi is coming under renewed pressure to do so at a time when Italian-US relations are sticky at best, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Rome. The US has never commented on the case. Those indicted include the former station chief of CIA operations in Milan, Robert Seldon Lady, who says his opposition to the proposal to kidnap the imam was over-ruled. He is reported to be among those who have returned to the US, leaving behind a villa in Italy which he bought with his life savings. Mr Pollari, the former head of the Italian secret service, SISMI, had already been removed from his job following a parliamentary inquiry into the claims. Of the seven Italians who were charged, six were charged with abduction and one is accused of withholding information on abductions. Lawyers say they have compiled thousands of pages of documents and testimony from Italian agents past and present, some of whom have acknowledged working with the US in planning the abduction. The trial is due to begin on 8 June. Torture claims Mr Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, was released from prison in Egypt only on Sunday. He says that he was repeatedly beaten and tortured during his four years of detention in Cairo. He described one form of torture in which he was forced to lie on a wet mattress through which an electric current was passed. Mr Hassan still faces the risk of arrest as a terror suspect if he returns to Italy, our correspondent says, but his lawyer has said that he wishes to come to Milan nonetheless to testify during the trial. On Wednesday, EU lawmakers endorsed a damning report accusing some member states of turning a blind eye to rendition, naming Italy as one of the countries involved. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/worl...ope/6368269.stm Published: 2007/02/16 16:51:35 GMT |
The revelations of this trial, if it happens, have the potential to be very interesting indeed.
freedomfiles - February 22, 2007 04:07 AM (GMT)
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| Four more Americans charged in CIA kidnapping of Muslim cleric February 18, 2007 On Friday an Italian judge charged four more Americans to stand trial for kidnapping of Italian cleric Hassan Nasr in 2003, bringing the total number of Americans charged to 26. Included in the latest round of charges are three suspected CIA agents, and Colonel Joseph L. Romano, the first US military personnel charged in the investigation. Complete article : http://www.redbolivia.com/noticias/News%20...lish/42000.html |
Bridget - February 28, 2007 02:54 PM (GMT)
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| U.S. won't extradite CIA agents to Italy Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:53 PM GMT163 By Mark John BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States will reject any request by Italy to extradite CIA agents for the first criminal trial over controversial U.S. "renditions" of terror suspects, a U.S. government lawyer said on Wednesday. A Milan judge earlier this month ordered 26 Americans, most of them thought to be CIA agents, to stand trial with Italian spies for kidnapping a Muslim cleric and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. "We've not got an extradition request from Italy ... If we got an extradition request from Italy, we would not extradite U.S. officials to Italy," U.S. State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger told a news briefing. Bellinger, in Brussels for meetings with European legal advisers, did not comment on details of the case but said the United States would never hand over a suspect to another country without assurances about their treatment. He acknowledged widespread concern in Europe about the tactics of the Bush administration in what it calls the "war on terror" but said the risk of legal action against U.S. officials in Europe was harming intelligence cooperation. "The continuing threat of criminal charges not only harms cooperation on our end but does also cast a pall over cooperation on the European side as well," he said. "We get assurances from countries that individuals will be properly treated and if we can't get these assurances then we will not turn people over to those countries," he added. |
Bridget - May 5, 2007 09:25 AM (GMT)
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| CIA agents' trial scheduled in Italy MILAN, Italy, May 4 (UPI) -- A judge in Milan Friday cleared the way for the trial of 26 CIA agents and two former Italian intelligence officials over the abduction of a Muslim cleric. Constitutional Judge Simone Luerti denied the government's claim that prosecutors overstepped in bringing the charges, ANSA reported. The case is expected to be the first internationally to examine the U.S. policy of rendition, under which suspected terrorists are abducted in one country and questioned in another. U.S. officials have acknowledged using rendition but deny allegations suspects are tortured. The case is scheduled to go to trial June 8. The CIA agents will be tried in absentia since the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has not passed along their extradition requests, ANSA reported. Niccolo Pollari, the former commander and deputy commander of the Italian military intelligence agency, SISMI, and Marco Mancini also face charges in the abduction by agents of Egyptian-born cleric Abu Omar four years ago. The trial could be derailed by another government appeal to the Constitutional Court, ANSA reported. |
freedomfiles - August 5, 2007 10:44 PM (GMT)
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 Nicolo Pollari Italian Secret services to be reformed 01/08/2007 21:22 - (SA) http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,...2157117,00.html Rome - The Italian Senate approved on Wednesday a package of reforms to the country's scandal-plagued secret services under which the prime minister and parliament will have more oversight powers. The head of government will henceforth have "the political direction and co-ordination" of the civilian and military secret service branches. Scandals within the military branch, SISMI, led the centre-left government of Romano Prime Minister to sack its director, General Nicolo Pollari, last November. Pollari and his former deputy Marco Mancini are on trial in Milan for the CIA-led abduction of an Egyptian imam in the northern city in 2003. Another SISMI agent, Pio Pompa, was found in possession of files on magistrates, journalists and political figures. He was accused of keeping tabs on supposed opponents to then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Under the reforms, the prime minister will name the agencies' directors with the power to fire them, and may name a minister to an intelligence portfolio. At the same time parliamentary watchdog committee will be given more teeth, notably the power - if all 10 members agree - to lift state secrecy when it is evoked by a person under investigation by the panel. Judicial or banking secrecy will no longer be allowed as bars to testimony. The committee, to be led by a member of the opposition, will also have oversight of the spending of the intelligence services and access to the offices of the two agencies. The reform explicitly bars killing or harming the health of others, while leaving the door open to the commission of illegal acts, to be authorised on a case-by-case basis. It also bars illegal acts committed against the headquarters of political parties, unions or professional journalists. "This reform opens an important chapter in the history of the Italian secret services," said Claudio Scajola, who heads the parliamentary committee and served as interior minister under Berlusconi. Both agencies are to be renamed, with SISDE to become the Interior Information and Security Agency (AISI) and SISMI the Exterior Information and Security Agency (AISE).  See also: European judges demand answers on Italy spying July 18, 2007 http://www.stuff.co.nz/4132013a12.html Controversy rages over Italian political spy scandal July 9. 2007 http://www.ilvelino.it/articolo.php?Id=384970 Italy's military spooks 'spied on magistrates to help Berlusconi' July 7, 2007 \http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,2120963,00.html |
Sinclair - November 22, 2007 01:41 PM (GMT)
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Monday, July 04, 2005 "CIA" Italian Job Gets Interesting Gladio-Styled “Strategy of Tension” Spawning Islamic Terrorism? Kurt Nimmo Monday July 04th 2005 7:32 am As it turns out, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, who was reportedly abducted in Milan on February 17, 2003, was a CIA informant, according to Albanian intelligence officials. “Why would the U.S. government go to elaborate lengths to seize a 39-year-old Egyptian who, according to former Albanian intelligence officials, was once the CIA’s most productive source of information within the tightly knit group of Islamic fundamentalists living in exile in Albania?” muses the Chicago Tribune. Italian prosecutors seem to believe Nasr had wandered and the CIA wanted to “turn him back into the informer he once was.” Maybe. However, there is also the possibility the CIA (and there is evidence the abduction has nothing to do with the CIA) wanted to make sure Nasr didn’t spill the beans on their covert activities. Italian prosecutors are discovering some interesting links as they probe the Nasr abduction. As Wayne Madsen writes, it wasn’t the CIA who kidnapped Nasr but rather “a covert team of U.S. Defense Department Special Forces, mercenaries, and intelligence agents who are now the subject of international arrest warrants.” It now appears members of this Pentagon-based (not the CIA) covert team were in cahoots with Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca, two neofascists “who reportedly have close ties to both the P-2 (Propaganda Due) Masonic lodge and a secret Cold War network known as Gladio,” according to Madsen. Saya and Sindoca set up something dubbed “the Department of Strategic Anti-Terrorism Studies, which reportedly had links to both the Bush administration and Ariel Sharon’s Likud government in Israel.” Operation Gladio is very interesting in the current context because it was essentially a “tool for political repression and manipulation, directed by NATO and Washington,” as Chris Floyd explains. “Using right-wing militias, underworld figures, government provocateurs and secret military units, Gladio not only carried out widespread terrorism, assassinations and electoral subversion in democratic states such as Italy, France and West Germany, but also bolstered fascist tyrannies in Spain and Portugal, abetted the military coup in Greece and aided Turkey’s repression of the Kurds.” Gladio employed a “strategy of tension,” that is to say the secretive group pulled off terrorist plots and blamed it on left-wingers, “fomenting fear to keep populations in thrall to ’strong leaders’ who will protect the nation from the ever-present terrorist threat.” In Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio and NATO’s Stay-Behind Armies, edited by Daniele Ganser and Christian Nuenlist, we learn about specifics of the Gladio “strategy of tension.” Vincenzo Vinciguerra, who confessed to carrying out the Peteano terrorist attack of 31 May 1972 (blamed on the Red Brigades), testified that the “terrorist line was followed by camouflaged people, people belonging to the security apparatus, or those linked to the state apparatus through rapport or collaboration.” Right-wing organizations across Western Europe “were being mobilized into the battle as part of an anti-communist strategy originating not with organizations deviant from the institutions of power, but from the state itself,” specifically NATO. Mark Zepezauer writes: One of P-2’s [members of Operation Gladio were also connected to P-2] specialties was the art of provocation. Leftist organizations like the Red Brigades were infiltrated, financed and / or created, and the resulting acts of terrorism, like the assassination of Italy’s premier in 1978 and the bombing of the railway station in Bologna in 1980, were blamed on the left. The goal of this “strategy of tension” was to convince Italian voters that the left was violent and dangerous—by helping make it so. Is it possible a new (or extended) version of Operation Gladio is currently at work in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, endeavoring to convince us that Islam is “violent and dangerous—by helping make it so”? It appears Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr (currently a disappeared person) worked for either the CIA or intelligence units run out of the Pentagon (specifically, the Pentagon’s Task Force 121 covert units). It should be noted that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset during the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Last October, I theorized the kidnapping of CARE’s Margaret Hassan was a joint CIA-Mossad operation. I wrote at the time “the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan is part of a counterinsurgency operation devised to make the resistance look bad and thus turn world opinion against it,” in other words a classic Gladio-like operation. “Since it is obviously impossible for the United States to defeat the Iraqi resistance, it makes perfect sense for the CIA—possibly in alliance with other covert intelligence operations, for instance the documented Mossad operation in northern Iraq—to covertly engage in terrorism, which the White House and the corporate media subsequently blame on the resistance.” It is interesting the Italians are in the process of linking two fascist Gladio warriors to the Pentagon abduction of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, a Muslim apparently working under cover for the CIA, according to sources quoted by the Chicago Tribune. Of course, all of this will blow over in a few days as the news cycle revolves around more important stories—for instance, women desperate for Jessica Simpson’s hair, or singer and reality show attendee Pink’s marriage to motocross racer Carey Hart. Most Americans have no idea who Nasr is—or if they did would they particularly care—and Gladio must be a movie about gladiators or something. Ignorance is bliss—although it may ultimately prove to be deadly bliss as the Bushcons nudge the nation closer to total war (with more than a little help from “strategy of tension” covert operations) and the cell phone and flat plasma HDTV generation are reminded their “sacrifice” is required (through bullet-stopper conscription) to bring “democracy” to benighted Arabs and such who, coincidentally, are a thorn in Israel’s side and just so happen to be sitting atop a whole lot of oil and other natural resources. source |
justthefacts - May 9, 2008 12:20 AM (GMT)
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| Friday, July 01, 2005 Italian Fascist Secret Police Network Uncovered |
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| 07-03-2005, 03:37 PM A MAJOR SPY SCANDAL IS BREAKING IN ITALY Genoa police have arrested the two leaders of a neo-Fascist unofficial intelligence and "anti-terrorism" police network in Italy and have conducted searches of homes throughout the country in a major crackdown on a group that recruited police and intelligence agents to their cause. The two neo-Fascist leaders -- Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca -- who reportedly have close ties to both the P-2 Masonic lodge and a secret Cold War network known as Gladio, were arrested. Some 25 members of the regular state police, the Carabinieri, the Frontier police, and the Prison police were placed under official investigation. |
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| 02 luglio 2005 Sono Saya, massone e militante |
Bridget - May 14, 2008 11:19 PM (GMT)
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| Page last updated at 10:19 GMT, Wednesday, 14 May 2008 11:19 UK Italy PM called in rendition case  Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar (file image) Abu Omar was suspected of recruiting Islamist fighters Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi will be called as a witness in a trial over the alleged CIA kidnap of a terror suspect. Twenty-six Americans and six Italians are accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from Italy and sending him to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured. A judge in Milan ruled that Mr Berlusconi, who faces no charges in the trial, could be called to testify. Former spy chief Nicolo Pollari says testimony from ex-heads of government may prove he was against the practice. Mr Berlusconi is considered a key witness as he was prime minister when prosecutors allege that Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr was snatched from a street in Milan, in February 2003. Torture claims Italian prosecutors say he was taken as part of a series of extraordinary renditions carried out by the CIA - when terror suspects were moved between countries without any public legal process. Judge Oscar Magi ruled that former Prime Minister Romano Prodi can also be called as a witness during the trial. The US agents and military personnel will be tried in absentia. Italian prosecutors say Mr Nasr was taken to US bases in Italy and Germany before being taken to the Egyptian capital of Cairo. Mr Nasr says he was tortured during his four-year imprisonment in Cairo. At the time of his arrest he was suspected of recruiting fighters for Islamic groups but had not been charged. He was released by Egypt in February 2007. BBC |