Italy alleges CIA official worked to abduct cleric

MILAN, Italy – A former Italian intelligence agent told prosecutors that the top CIA official in Italy in 2003 worked directly with Italian military intelligence to abduct a Muslim cleric who was later imprisoned in Egypt, according to an arrest warrant filed last week.

The former Italian agent, Stefano D’Ambrosio, told prosecutors he was informed “in explicit terms” by a ranking CIA agent that a joint operation to kidnap the cleric was encouraged by and “directly attributed” to the CIA’s station chief in Rome.

“It was (the CIA station chief) who actually made the contacts with SISMI for this purpose,” said D’Ambrosio, who worked for SISMI, the Italian military intelligence agency.

D’Ambrosio, who was responsible in part for tracking terror activities in Milan, also told investigators that he eventually left SISMI because his career was derailed when he questioned superiors about the plan.

The abduction of the cleric, suspected of terror-linked activity, took place in Milan in February 2003.

Last week, one of D’Ambrosio’s former superiors, Marco Mancini, was arrested on kidnapping charges. Mancini’s boss in military intelligence, Gustavo Pignero, was placed under house arrest for the cleric’s kidnapping.

The cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, has been jailed in Egypt since 2003. His kidnapping and imprisonment without trial have stirred controversy over the pursuit of what CIA officials call rendition, or the spiriting of suspected terrorists through Europe to Middle East jails for interrogation.

The former station chief who left Rome in August 2003 but now works for the CIA in the United States was charged by Italian authorities last week with Abu Omar’s kidnapping.

Three other Americans – two CIA employees and a U.S. military officer – are also charged in the arrest warrant filed last week.

All four Americans are accused of coordinating the kidnapping of the cleric. The top CIA official and the others, according to the warrant, assured those involved in the kidnapping that they would have the support of the Italian intelligence organization.

The Chicago Tribune is not identifying the CIA employees because they are on active undercover duty. The warrant was obtained this weekend by the Tribune from a person familiar with the investigation.

Prosecutors last year filed an arrest warrant for 22 past and present CIA operatives linked to the cleric’s abduction. The Italian government refused then to pursue extradition of the Americans. But prosecutors apparently intend to again seek extradition of all 26 Americans now charged.

The other CIA employees named in last week’s warrant are a female agent who worked directly with the CIA chief in Rome and a male agent. The military officer worked at the U.S. base in Aviano, Italy, where the cleric was taken and then flown eventually to Cairo. Robert Seldon Lady, a CIA officer based in Milan at the time of the incident who is now retired, was charged in the previous warrant, but his name is mentioned again in the new warrant.