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Milan Judges Issue Three New Arrest Warrants for CIA Agents

Posted on: Friday, 30 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

Judges in Milan have issued a further three CIA agents with arrest warrants in connection with the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian citizen in Milan in 2003, according to a front-page article by Italy's leading daily, Milan's Corriere della Sera.

One of the three presumed CIA agents involved was a top US embassy official in Rome, the paper said, adding that the total number of CIA operatives wanted for arrest by the Milan judges is now of 22.

The CIA agents are suspected of kidnapping the Egyptian imam Abu Umar on 17 February 2004 and flying him to an Egyptian jail - where he was allegedly tortured for months and is still thought to be kept in custody, according to the daily.

According to Corriere, prosecutors believe the head of the CIA in Milan "was in Cairo exactly when violence started being carried out on the man while he was being questioned in jail" - a circumstance reportedly proven by aeroplane tickets.

Milan prosecutors believe the operation is part of the USA's "extraordinary rendition programme", which entails abducting terror suspects anywhere in the world and flying them to third countries for interrogation.

The paper also said that judges in the German town of Zweibrucken have also opened an investigation into the abduction, because "the Italian inquiry makes one think that [the NATO base in] Ramstein was the central command of this rendition [the Abu-Umar kidnap] and possibly, of other illegal CIA operations in Europe".

Source: BBC Monitoring Newsfile

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