Wall Street Journal (10.5.09)

Italy Rules in Rendition Case

Court Convicts 23 U.S. Operatives of Milan Kidnapping of Imam

By STACY MEICHTRY IN ROME and SIOBHAN GORMAN IN WASHINGTON

An Italian court convicted 23 U.S. intelligence operatives on charges of kidnapping an Egyptian imam on a Milan street, prosecutors and lawyers said. The decision is a landmark ruling on the controversial U.S. practice of abducting suspected terrorists and flying them to other countries for interrogation.

Robert Seldon Lady, a former Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Milan, was sentenced Wednesday in absentia to eight years in prison, according to his court-appointed lawyer Arianna Barbazza. Twenty-one other CIA operatives and an Air Force official, all tried in absentia, received five-year prison sentences, Ms. Barbazza said, adding that she planned to appeal the verdict.

Prosecutor Armando Spataro speaks during a Milan trial in which 23 U.S. intelligence operatives were convicted.

The judge, Oscar Magi, issued an order for the immediate arrest of the convicted operatives, Ms. Barbazza added. A European Union arrest warrant for the 23 U.S. intelligence operatives is already outstanding.

Italy hasn't issued an extradition request for any of the Americans implicated, however, and the Italian appeals process could take several years, making it unlikely that any of the convicted operatives will actually serve time.

The case of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, is the first trial to reach a ruling related to the so-called extraordinary rendition program of the U.S., under which terrorism suspects have been ferreted out of Europe to other nations, some of which use torture.

The rendition practice was used by the CIA under President Bill Clinton and then more aggressively during the George W. Bush administration.

Obama administration officials voiced dissatisfaction with the ruling. "We are disappointed by the verdicts," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly, who declined to comment further because the judge hasn't issued a written decision. A CIA spokesman declined to comment.

Abu Omar was abducted on the street in Milan on Feb. 17, 2003, in a joint operation between CIA agents and Italian intelligence services. Italian prosecutors said during the trial that Mr. Nasr was sent to a U.S. air base in Aviano, Italy, then placed on a flight to Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, and then shipped to Egypt where he was held in detention. Mr. Nasr's lawyers argued during the trial that he was tortured in Egypt.

Over the past year, the Obama administration has made several efforts to sweep away contentious Bush-era counterterrorism controversies that have dogged the CIA and Justice Department. But other countries' justice systems continue to pursue their own investigations. Spain's best-known investigating magistrate, Judge Baltasar Garzón, for example, has launched a formal criminal probe into allegations of torture at U.S. naval base Guantanamo Bay.

The number of people ferried out of Europe under the rendition program isn't known. A 2006 report by the European Council, a human-rights body, estimated that 100 people had been taken out of the EU under the program. A February 2007 report by the European Parliament said the CIA had conducted 1,245 flights from Europe to nations where detainees could face torture.

The issue of rendition has been difficult for the Obama administration because the president decided to continue the practice of transferring detainees to other countries for interrogation. When taking the helm of the CIA in February, Director Leon Panetta said the agency would continue to use rendition, but would seek assurances that the detainee wouldn't be tortured -- which has been the standing U.S. policy.

"This [verdict] is a warning, a reminder that human rights can't be compromised in any situation -- even the fight against terrorism," said Carmelo Scambia, Mr. Nasr's lawyer.

Tom Parker, an official with human-rights group Amnesty International, called on the Obama administration to repudiate the extraordinary-rendition program. "Continuing these practices will inevitably have a chilling effect on countries' willingness to work with the United States," he said, adding: "The United States shouldn't need a foreign court to distinguish right from wrong."

Since the trial started in 2007, prosecutors have faced a legal and diplomatic minefield. Successive Italian governments didn't act on a request by prosecutors, lodged in 2006, seeking the extradition of the Americans ordered to stand trial. Furthermore, classified Italian documents that made up a large chunk of the trial's evidence were ruled inadmissible on the grounds that their use would reveal top-secret information.

Prosecutors pressed on, relying on evidence gathered from records of cellphone communications among the U.S. operatives, allegedly discussing the operation.

In his verdict, Judge Magi ordered the convicted U.S. operatives and Italian intelligence officials to pay collective damages of €1 million ($1.47 million) to Mr. Nasr and €500,000 to his wife, Mr. Scambia said.

Two Italian intelligence agents were also convicted Wednesday and sentenced to three years for trying to impede the investigation. Tita Madia, a lawyer for one of the agents, Pio Pompa, said he planned to appeal the ruling.

The court dropped charges against three American diplomats accredited through the U.S. Embassy in Rome, ruling that they were shielded from prosecution by diplomatic immunity, according to Matilde Sansalone, a lawyer who represents two of the diplomats.

A spokesman for the Italian government declined to comment on prosecutors' pending 2006 extradition request.