Italian Court Convicts 23 Americans in CIA Kidnapping Case
Twenty-three Americans tried in absentia in Italy have been convicted of kidnapping an Egyptian terror suspect as part of a CIA extraordinary rendition program.
Judge Oscar Magi sentenced 22 of the Americans to five years in jail and sentenced former Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady to eight years in jail, the Associated Press reports.
Magi acquitted three other Americans on the ground of diplomatic immunity and acquitted five Italian defendants because Italy withheld information in their cases.
The trial is the first in the world involving the CIA extraordinary rendition program, AP says. The kidnapped cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, says he was taken from a Milan street, spirited to Germany, and then taken to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
The ruling shows courts can rule on extraordinary rendition even in countries that are friendly to the United States, according to Bloomberg. Premier Silvio Berlusconi had tried without success to halt the case based on national security grounds.
A Milan prosecutor said his office would seek to have the Americans extradited, but a formal decision has to be made first by the Italian Justice Ministry, the Washington Post reports.
