No extradition of CIA officials to Italy, says US

A Milan judge earlier this month ordered the Americans to stand trial with Italian spies for kidnapping a Muslim cleric and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.

Among those indicted for the 2003 abduction are former heads of the US Central Intelligence Agency in Rome and Milan, and the former head of Italy’s SISMI military intelligence agency, Nicolo Pollari, defense lawyers in Italy said.

Bellinger’s comments confirm widespread expectations that Washington would not hand over the indictees, who will now most likely be tried in absentia when the trial begins on June 8.

The trial will be the first criminal case over “renditions” — one of the most controversial aspects of US President Bush’s war on terrorism.

Prosecutors say a CIA-led team, with SISMI’s help, grabbed terrorism suspect Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, off a Milan street in February 2003, bundled him into a van and drove him to a military base in northern Italy.

Prosecutors allege that from there, the CIA flew him to Egypt via Germany where he says he was tortured with electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse.

A European Parliament report published this month concluded that renditions were illegal and had gone on with the collusion of a number of European governments and their secret services. Bellinger rejected the findings of the parliament report as “unbalanced, inaccurate and unfair”.