Italy's Pursuit of CIA Operatives Stalls(no hope of stopping US infringing

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-cia30dec30,0,4946465.story?track=tottext

From the Los Angeles Times
THE WORLD
Italy's Pursuit of CIA Operatives Stalls
Resistance by Berlusconi government and apathy about being able to keep the U.S. from infringing sovereignty fetter case of imam spirited abroad.
By Tracy Wilkinson
Times Staff Writer

December 30, 2005

ROME — The secret agents who captured Abu Omar weren't very secret.

In the days surrounding their abduction of the radical Egyptian cleric on a Milan street nearly three years ago, they chatted openly on their cellular phones, ran up huge bills at luxury hotels and even managed to let their rental cars be photographed by traffic cameras as they drove illegally through pedestrian walkways.

The case became the most well-documented example of a secret CIA practice aimed at hunting down terrorism suspects. But Italy's efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice have stalled, a casualty of political stonewalling, international intrigue and public apathy.

Italy has issued Europe-wide arrest warrants for the alleged captors of the cleric, whose full name is Hassan Osama Nasr: 22 CIA operatives, including the former station chief in Milan. Italian prosecutors say Abu Omar, whom investigators suspected of heading a terrorist network, was transported by U.S. agents to an Egyptian prison, where he has said he was tortured.

The operation in Milan was one example in what is now known to be the much wider practice by U.S. intelligence services of using European soil and airspace for the possibly illegal detention of dozens of suspects. The practice involves hidden prisons and clandestine flights in and out of European airports.

Getting to the bottom of the activities has proved difficult and, in some cases, embarrassing for governments not only in Italy but also Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Britain.
<snip>