Italian court convicts US agents in CIA rendition case

[Hannah Bell]

In a landmark decision with global political repercussions an Italian court has convicted in absentia a total of 23 American agents for their role in the 2003 kidnapping of an Italian citizen, Abu Omar, by the US Central Intelligence Agency.

The verdict is the first ever world-wide relating to the CIA's extraordinary rendition programme for abducting those who are targeted in Washington's “war on terror.” The main prosecutor, Armando Spataro, who spent five years assembling evidence for his case, is Italy’s chief prosecutor for terrorist offences.

The court in Milan handed down sentences of five years in jail for 21 CIA operatives and a US Air Force officer and a sentence of eight years in prison for the main organiser of the kidnapping, the former Milan CIA station chief Robert Lady. Another three US citizens, including Lady's superior, Jeff Castelli, who was then head of the CIA in Italy, were acquitted on the basis that they enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

All of those convicted are now regarded as fugitives under Italian law. Spataro indicated that he may call for the Italian government to issue an international arrest order for those convicted. The Berlusconi government has rejected such requests in the past...

The court also ruled that the convicted parties must pay a total of €1 million ($1.5 million) in damages to Abu Omar and €500,000 to his wife.

The case of Abu Omar is a particularly brutal example of the notorious CIA practice of extraordinary rendition. Instead of being charged and brought before a court, individuals allegedly suspected of having ties to terrorism have been kidnapped and transferred to secret prisons, “black sites,” in countries allied to the US. In these prisons, they are subjected to years of torture and abuse and then can simply be disposed of at will. Those European countries where such renditions have taken place have not only tolerated such activities, but have been complicit in the operations.


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/ital-n06.shtml

[thunder rising]

1. Now if somebody would convict the MFs that kill down in South America maybe we could get control

of the CIA.

Those assholes live in their own world with little regard to what the citizens of the US want.

Is cheaper bananas really worth thousands of lives?