Italian intelligence officials convicted for abduction of Egyptian imam in cooperation with CIA

The New York Times: 
Italy’s former military intelligence chief was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday for complicity in the C.I.A.’s abduction of an Egyptian Muslim cleric under a program begun after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

 The appeals court, in Milan, sentenced the former chief, Niccolò Pollari, to 10 years and his former deputy Marco Mancini to nine years for their role in the kidnapping of the cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, from the streets of Milan in 2003. Three Italian secret service officials were also sentenced to six years each.

Twenty-three Americans, including Robert Seldon Lady, a former C.I.A. base chief in Milan, were tried in absentia in the Abu Omar case in 2009 and convicted. All but one of them were C.I.A. agents. Three other Americans indicted in the case, including Jeffrey Castelli, the former C.I.A. station chief in Rome, were given diplomatic immunity and acquitted in 2009, but earlier this month, the Milan court vacated the acquittals and convicted them in absentia. Mr. Castelli was sentenced to seven years in prison and the other two to six years. 

The cleric was abducted on Feb. 17, 2003, as he was walking to his mosque in Milan. Prosecutors said he had been taken to an American air base in Italy and flown to Germany and then on to Egypt, where the cleric has said he was tortured.