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.

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-cia30sep30,0,43...