This is what happens when you take orders from Bush and Cheney and commit crimes in a country that isn’t afraid to enforce the law.
An Italian judge on Wednesday convicted 23 Americans in absentia of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric from a Milan street, in a landmark case involving the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program in the war on terrorism.
Citing diplomatic immunity, Judge Oscar Magi told the Milan courtroom Wednesday that he was acquitting three other Americans.
Former Milan CIA station chief, Robert Seldon Lady, received eight years in prison. The other 22 convicted American defendants each received a five-year sentence.
The Americans, all but one identified by prosecutors as CIA agents, were tried in absentia as subsequent Italian governments refused or ignored prosecutors’ extradition request.
In Washington, CIA spokesman George Little declined to comment on the convictions. He said, “The CIA has not commented on any of the allegations surrounding Abu Omar,” the kidnapped man.
Maybe we ought to have the same courage right here in the greatest country evah!
Of course, we aren’t turning anybody over even if Berlesconi asks for extradition.
don’t tell me: tell Obama.
he’s the one who doesn’t want to look back.
As Kevin Drum points out however, he declined to prosecute the Italian government agents involved because of state secrecy. So it actually just shows the Italians are as hypocritical as we are.
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Still is a major ruling set by a court getting opposition from within Italy and the US government. It sends out a powerful message.
(The Guardian) – The judge ruled that neither the former head of Italy’s military intelligence service (SISMI) Nicolo Pollari nor his deputy could be convicted because the evidence against them was subject to official secrecy restrictions. But two other Italian intelligence officials were each given three-year prison terms.
To build their case, the prosecutors ordered police to tap operatives’ telephones and seize documents from intelligence service archives. Earlier this year, Italy’s constitutional court dealt the prosecution a heavy blow when it ruled that much of the evidence it had gathered was protected by under Italy’s official secrecy laws and could not therefore be used in court. Magi ruled that the trial should continue regardless.
In a reference to the two senior Italian intelligence officials, the lead prosecutor, Armando Spataro, told the court today that the defendants included those who “by kidnapping Abu Omar compromised, rather than safeguarded, national security”.
The judge awarded him €1m (£900,000) and his wife €500,000 in damages.
(HRW) – The verdicts today also stand in stark contrast to a disappointing decision issued on November 2 by a US federal appellate court in New York, which dismissed the suit brought by Canadian rendition victim Maher Arar. Arar was detained while in transit at John F. Kennedy airport in September 2002, then rendered by the CIA to Jordan and Syria, where he was brutally tortured for nearly a year.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."especially coming from the italians. Berlesconi?…puhleeze…they can’t even clean their own house.
truth be known, those 23 cia assets have nothing to fear. they’ve likely been very well compensated, probably have new identities, and are laughing their asses off at the verdict in some cushy surroundings.
the company takes care of it’s own.