Italian Prosecutors Seek Arrest of C.I.A. Operatives

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
International Herald Tribune
Jul. 05, 2006

MILAN, July 5 ? Italian prosecutors today sought the arrest and extradition of four Americans, three of them Central Intelligence Agency operatives, for their role in the 2003 kidnapping in Milan of a radical Egyptian cleric. Two officials of the Italian secret service were arrested in the case today.

The investigation into the abduction, which prosecutors say was done at the behest of American officials, has already implicated another 22 C.I.A. agents.

The arrest of the two officials from the Italian intelligence agency, SISMI, is the first official acknowledgment of Italian involvement in the abduction.

The cleric ? Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, the imam of a Milanese mosque ? was forcibly picked up while walking on a street near his home on Feb. 17, 2003, and whisked off to the military airbase at Aviano in northern Italy, before being flown to Egypt, prosecutors have said. The fourth American whose arrest was sought today worked at Aviano.

News agencies identified the arrested Italians as Marco Mancini, the current head of military counterespionage, and Gustavo Pignero, who held the same post at the time of the abduction.

Prosecutors said the kidnapping was an example of "extraordinary rendition," the American government practice of secretly apprehending suspected terrorists and transferring them to third countries where they are imprisoned and interrogated beyond the reach of American law. They are seeking the extradition of the Americans they say were involved, including the C.I.A. agents.

The government of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi rejected the prosecutors' request and repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the operation on Italian soil.