Italy Seeks Indictment of CIA Operatives for Out-Sourcing Torture

Ian Fisher and Elisabetta Povoledo for the NY Times report: ROME, Dec. 5 — Italian prosecutors asked Tuesday for the indictment of the country’s former intelligence chief, along with 25 operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency, for their involvement in the kidnapping of a militant Egyptian cleric from Milan in 2003. (…) The indictment asks for the trials of 26 Americans, all but one of whom were C.I.A. agents, including two who were the top agency officials in Italy at the time. The other American cited in the indictment is an Air Force colonel at the American air base in Aviano, from which Mr. Nasr says he was flown to an American air base in Germany, then to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured. It is the first case in the world in which local officials have been tried in the contentious program of “extraordinary rendition,” a program in which American agents abducted scores of suspected Islamic militants after Sept. 11, 2001. The suspects are believed to have been taken to interrogation centers in third countries, some of which permit torture.