Italy Seeks Former U.S. Diplomat in Kidnapping
Ralph Barker
Italy Seeks Former U.S. Diplomat in Kidnapping
The warrant links an imam's abduction to the Rome embassy. A total of 22
people are sought.
By Tracy Wilkinson
Times Staff Writer
September 30, 2005
ROME — Italian authorities have ordered the arrests of a former U.S.
Embassy official here and two other people in connection with a
"rendition" case in which CIA operatives allegedly kidnapped a radical
Muslim cleric from Milan and flew him to Egypt, where, he has said, he was
tortured.
The new arrest warrants bring to 22 the number of people sought on
suspicion of planning and executing the plot and apparently are the first
direct connection to the U.S. Embassy in Rome. U.S. intelligence officials
in Washington, though refusing to acknowledge the operation publicly, have
sought to portray it as conducted by the spy-world equivalent of
contractors.
The warrants were signed by a judge this week in response to a petition
from prosecutors Armando Spataro and Ferdinando Pomarici, an Italian
judicial official said Thursday. Details are contained in court documents
reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
As with earlier orders in the same case, the named Americans are believed
to have long since departed Italy, and no arrests appeared imminent.
An imam known as Abu Omar was seized in February 2003 in a so-called
extraordinary rendition, a controversial practice in which the U.S.
snatches suspected terrorists and transports them to other countries
without judicial permission.
Italy, however, stunned Washington during the summer by attempting to
prosecute 19 people, including a man identified in arrest warrants as the
former CIA station chief in Milan, who are alleged to have taken part in
the abduction. It is believed to be the first time that an ally has
attempted to bring U.S. operatives to justice in such a case.
Italian investigators said their review of telephone traffic among those
who abducted the imam in Milan 2 1/2 years ago led them to the former U.S.
Embassy employee. She is believed to have made or received a number of
calls aimed at coordinating and organizing the abduction and to have
participated directly in the operation, according to papers filed in court
by prosecutors.
Investigators found evidence that she checked into a Milan hotel 24 days
before the kidnapping and traveled with the other suspects to the U.S.-run
Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, where Abu Omar was bundled onto a
private jet bound for Egypt via the U.S. military's Ramstein Air Base in
Germany, Italian prosecutors said.
The prosecutors maintain that the participation of the woman is especially
egregious given the diplomatic position she held at the embassy. According
to public records, she served in the U.S. Embassy in Rome until this year,
when she was transferred to Latin America.
The Italian court file does not identify her as a CIA officer, though
previous Italian court documents have said the team of agents worked under
the former CIA station chief in Milan.
The Times is not naming the former Rome embassy official. The paper
generally avoids naming undercover intelligence operatives unless their
names are put into public record.
CIA officers often work overseas as U.S. Embassy officials with the status
of diplomats, even though they do not work for the State Department.
Asked whether the former embassy employee was a CIA officer, agency
spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise said: "We are not going to comment on this
story."
Efforts to speak to the former Rome embassy worker at her posting in Latin
America were not successful. In a brief conversation, a person answering
the phone initially identified herself as the woman; when told she was
speaking to a reporter, however, she immediately said she had no idea who
the woman was and refused to respond further.
At the request of the prosecutors, Italian police asked the domestic
secret service to detain her in March, but the agency reported that it
could not find her, the court documents state.
In Rome, the U.S. Embassy said it had no comment on the matter, the
position it has taken since the scandal erupted early this year.
Two men are also named in the new warrants, but those names appear to be
aliases.
The imam's suspected captors appear to have been sloppy, leaving behind
copies of their passports and credit card numbers and speaking openly on
cellphones that can be easily tracked by law enforcement officers, which
is how Italian authorities identified their suspects and built their case.
The names of the former embassy official and the former Milan station
chief thus far are the only apparently authentic names to have emerged in
the investigation.
The former station chief named was Robert Seldon Lady, who has since
retired. Lady, a 51-year-old American born in Honduras, served in the
Milan consulate and, by Italian accounts, directed Abu Omar's abduction
and transfer to Egypt. His name has been widely reported in connection
with this case.
When he vanished, the Egyptian-born Abu Omar, whose real name is Hassan
Osama Nasr and who had been granted political asylum by Italy, was being
investigated by Italian police, who suspected him of organizing a network
of Islamic fighters being dispatched to Iraq. Italian authorities were
furious at the Americans for allegedly snatching him under their nose,
contending that it hurt their broader efforts to prosecute terrorism cases.
Abu Omar eventually was able to make contact with his wife in Milan, whom
he telephoned during a brief period out of prison. He told her he had been
tortured and beaten. Italian authorities believe that Lady was present in
Egypt at the time and may have known what was happening.
At last report, Abu Omar remained jailed in Egypt without charge. He has
told associates that Egyptian authorities tried to persuade him to spy on
Islamic radicals for them, but he refused.
Since retiring, Lady has bought a home near the northern Italian city of
Turin. Italian police raided the home in June after the first warrants
were executed.
New details emerged in court papers this week about what the inspectors
found in the raid. In addition to a surveillance photo of Abu Omar taken a
month before his disappearance, police found on Lady's computer hard disk
information indicating he traveled to Cairo four days after the abduction
last year. He left Cairo on March 7. Investigators also discovered
research for determining the best way to travel from Milan to the Aviano
base.
The decision of the Italian judiciary to attempt to prosecute alleged CIA
operatives was previously unheard of in the world of renditions, a tactic
in which the U.S. government sends suspected terrorists to nations that
use coercive interrogation methods that would not be available otherwise.
The practice, which has grown in use since the Sept. 11 attacks in the
U.S., has been denounced as illegal by human rights groups.
Italy's judiciary is highly independent of the central government of
conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a staunch ally of the Bush
administration. He has denied advance knowledge of the Abu Omar capture.
But many Italians presume that the government secretly approved the
operation, and former agents in the U.S. have also said it could not have
been conducted without official Italian permission. Thinking they had
Italian government approval may also explain the evidently reckless nature
of the actions by the purported CIA operatives.