Italy Judge Orders Arrest of 13 CIA Agents For Kidnapping

What do you make of this then?

ROME - An Italian judge on Friday ordered the arrests of 13 CIA officers for secretly transporting a Muslim preacher from Italy to Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts — a rare public objection to the practice by a close American ally.

The Egyptian was spirited away in 2003, purportedly as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, subjecting them to possible torture.

The arrest warrants were announced Friday by the Milan prosecutor's office, which has called the disappearance a kidnapping and a blow to a terrorism investigation in Italy. The office said the imam was believed to belong to an Islamic terrorist group.

The 13 are accused of seizing Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, on a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003, and sending him to Egypt, where he reportedly was tortured, Milan prosecutor Manlio Claudio Minale said in a statement.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome and the CIA in Washington declined to comment.

One left-leaning friend of mine said earlier today he didn't expect the US to allow the Italians to get away with it.

Why shouldn't the Italians do this and get away with it?

The charge is that agents of a foreign government, without permission of the Italian government, kidnapped a suspect in an Italian terror investigation and removed him from the country to a nation where he would be tortured. Moreover, when Italian authorities asked the US about the case, they were told the mullah had been taken to the Balkans, not Egypt.

Surely the agent's actions are a gross infringement of Italian sovereignty and the later official lie is a gross insult to an ally in the Coalition. The Italians have a right to prosecute undeclared foreign agents with no diplomatic immunity who break the law in their country. What would the US do if the positions were reversed? Arrest and prosecute, of course. To think the Italians shouldn't do the same is an almost imperialistic double standard.

Germano Dottori, a political analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies in Rome, said it is not unusual for intelligence agencies to have squabbles with allied countries but that he could not recall prosecutors directly involved in investigating or apprehending agents involved.

"At some point the Americans will begin to think they can't trust the Italians," Dottori said.

For damn sure the Italians already have their reason not to trust the Americans.