Missing Imam's Trail Said to Lead From Italy to CIA

[realFedUp]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-vanished3mar03,0,5826221.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Prosecutors in Milan are investigating whether an Egyptian-born suspected militant was spirited away by the U.S. using a disputed tactic.

By Tracy Wilkinson and Bob Drogin
Times Staff Writers

March 3, 2005

ROME — When Hassan Osama Nasr, a controversial Egyptian-born imam, vanished from the streets of Milan two years ago, his friends and family insisted he'd been kidnapped by American agents. Few people listened. But today it appears Italian judicial authorities may agree with them.

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Fifteen months after disappearing in 2003, Abu Omar, who said he had been released by Egyptian authorities, telephoned his wife and friends in Milan and told them what had happened, Italian newspapers reported, citing prosecutors' wiretaps of the conversations. He said he had been blindfolded, driven to a military base, then flown to Egypt, where he was tortured. He was taken back into custody by Egyptian authorities shortly after the release, the reports said.

Italian newspapers say that up to 15 men, at least some of them CIA agents, are implicated in the alleged kidnapping. Italy's leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera, reported that the prosecution was focusing on Aviano Air Base after cellphone records showed that one of the suspected captors, allegedly en route with Abu Omar, called the facility.

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"The horror story of the post-9/11 world is that any foreign national anywhere in the world can be plucked from the streets of anywhere, whisked off to another country, never be heard from again and be utterly beyond the reach of the law," Joseph Margulies, a Chicago-based lawyer who represented Habib, said Wednesday.

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