You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Europe
Italian prosecutor wants six more Americans arrested in kidnap affair
2005-07-21
MILAN - An Italian prosecutor asked a court on Wednesday to arrest six more alleged CIA agents accused of involvement in the kidnapping of a radical Muslim cleric from a Milan street in 2003.

Italy has already issued arrest warrants for 13 of the 19 US secret service operatives who it says took part in a clandestine operation to kidnap Egyptian national Abu Omar, handing him over to Egyptian authorities for questioning. Assistant prosecutor Armando Spataro asked the appeals court in Milan to arrest the remaining six for their role in planning the kidnapping which has soured relations between Italy and the United States.

Spataro was appealing a decision by magistrate Chaira Nobili last month not to proceed with warrants for the six on the grounds that they had not “materially participated” in the abduction, but only in its preparation. However, the prosecutor told the court Wednesday that the investigation into the kidnapping had turned up “serious evidence of responsability” of the six, named as Eliana Castaldo, Victor Castellano, John Thomas Gurley, James Robert Kirkland, Anne Lidia Jenkins and Brenda Liliana Ibanez.

All 19 purported CIA agents, several of them long-time residents in Italy, are believed to have been relocated abroad.
They should be brought home and cashiered for being sloppy and stupid.
The cleric -- who was under investigation in Italy as part of an inquiry into international terrorism -- was the imam of a Milan mosque which has been under close surveillance since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. He was snatched from the street in October 2003 and flown from a US military base in northern Italy to Egypt, where his supporters say he was tortured.

The case has tarnished relations between Washington and Rome -- a staunch US ally which has a large troop contingent helping the Americans try to restore order in post-Saddam Iraq -- causing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to angrily summon US ambassador Mel Sembler.

Hassan’s lawyer has said he is being held without charge in an Egyptian prison 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of the capital Cairo.
Posted by:Steve White

00:00