by emad » Mon Jul 25, 2005 3:27 pm
Italian court orders arrests of six CIA operatives UPDATE <br>07.25.2005, 02:30 PM <br><br>(Updating with further details, background) <br><br>MILAN (AFX) - An Italian appeals court today ordered the arrest of six CIA (US Central Intelligence Agency) operatives accused of involvement in the 2003 kidnapping of a radical Muslim cleric from a street in Milan. <br><br>A court last month issued arrest warrants for the other 13 US intelligence operatives Italy says took part in a clandestine operation to kidnap Egyptian national Abu Omar, handing him over to Egyptian authorities for questioning. <br><br>State prosecutor Armando Spataro had appealed a ruling not to proceed with the arrest of the remaining six of the 19-strong unit because they had played no direct role in the abduction, which has soured relations between Italy and its ally, the United States. <br><br>The prosecutor told the court last week that the probe into the kidnapping had turned up 'serious evidence of responsibility' of the six, named as Eliana Castaldo, Victor Castellano, John Thomas Gurley, James Robert Kirkland, Anne Lidia Jenkins and Brenda Liliana Ibanez. <br><br>All 19 purported CIA agents, several of them long-time residents in Italy, are believed to have been relocated abroad. <br><br>The cleric -- who was under investigation in Italy as part of an inquiry into international terrorism -- was the imam of a Milan mosque which has been under close surveillance since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. <br><br>He was snatched from the street in February 2003 and flown from a US military base in northern Italy to Egypt, where his supporters say he was tortured. <br><br>The case has tarnished relations between Washington and Rome, causing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to summon former US ambassador Mel Sembler. <br><br>Sembler's three year tour of duty as US ambassador ended last Saturday. He has been succeeded by Ronald Spogli, who takes up his post on August 12. <br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.forbes.com/finance/feeds/afx/2005/07/25/afx2155483.html">www.forbes.com/finance/fe...55483.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
