More Fun Stuff on the Milan 13

By early 2003, the Italian secret police were aggressively pursuing a criminal terrorism case against Mr. Nasr, with the help of American intelligence officials. Italian investigators said they had told the Americans they had strong evidence that he was trying to build a terror recruitment network, possibly aimed for Iraq if the United States went forward with plans to topple Saddam Hussein.

On Feb. 17, 2003, Mr. Nasr disappeared.

When the Italians began investigating, they said, they were startled to find evidence that some of the C.I.A. officers who had been helping them investigate Mr. Nasr were involved in his abduction.

“We do feel quite betrayed that this operation was carried out in our city,” a senior Italian investigator said. “We supplied them information about Abu Omar, and then they used that information against us, undermining an entire operation against his terrorist network.”

He and other senior Italian officials in Milan’s police and prosecutor’s office were angry enough to answer detailed questions about the case, but insisted on anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

“This whole investigation has been very difficult because we’ve been using the same methods we used against organized crime to trace the activities of people we considered to be our friends and colleagues,” the senior Italian investigator said. “It has been quite a troubling affair.”

The Italian police and prosecutors said the C.I.A.’s top official at the United States consulate in Milan, a man accused in the arrest warrant of coordinating Mr. Nasr’s abduction, had been in close contact with them as they pursued intensive investigations into Al Qaeda and other Islamic militant networks in Europe.

Italian investigators said they were surprised when they discovered that he had placed a cellphone call to one of their own police officers not long after Mr. Nasr disappeared, but made no mention of what had happened, they said. The frustration expressed by the Italians echoes similar sentiments among some counterterrorism officials in other European countries.

“The American system is of little use to us,” a senior Italian counterterrorism investigator said. “It’s a one-way street. We give them what we have, but we are given no useful information that can help us prosecute people.”

The warrant documents, obtained by The New York Times, describe in detail how Mr. Nasr was flown through Germany to Egypt, where he told his family and friends, during phone calls in April 2004, that he was subjected to electroshock treatment and that he had lost the hearing in one ear.

The Italians said their anger and disappointment with the Americans did not end there. They said that when they later asked the Americans about Mr. Nasr’s whereabouts, they were told that American intelligence had discovered that he had surfaced somewhere in the Balkans.

If they are indeed Americans and C.I.A. officers and operatives, as described in the arrest warrants, and if they are now in the United States, the American government may in theory be obligated to extradite them…

“There is close to no probability that the United States is going to extradite any of these people to Italy, notwithstanding the letter of any treaty,” said Peter J. Spiro, who teaches international law at the University of Georgia. “It’s very unlikely that there is going to be any sort of cooperation on this end.”

…The extradition treaty between the United States and Italy on its face would seem to apply to the crime alleged here. Extradition is required, with few exceptions, where the offense in question gives rise to punishment of more than one year in each country. The13 Americans are accused of the crime of kidnapping, which carries serious penalties in both Italy and the United States.

The treaty contains exceptions for “political and military offenses,” but neither exception fits neatly here.

…”I could imagine the United States playing games,” Professor Cassel said. “If the extradition request came in the name of the false passport, they could say, ‘We have no knowledge of such a person.'”