By Jim KouriThe Italian government is being encouraged to not allow alleged abuses by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) go unpunished, despite Panama’s decision on Friday to release a former CIA station chief in Milan, who is wanted by Italy’s federal law enforcement, according to a major non-governmental agency (NGO) for human rights.News organizations covering the ongoing investigation by Italian authorities reported that Panama’s government officials detained alleged CIA operative Robert Seldon Lady at their border with Costa Rica on Thursday, but then released him the next day without charging him.
Lady was convicted in 2003 in absentia in an Italian courtroom for his participation in the capture of an Egyptian cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, a suspected member of al-Qaeda.
“Italy made history as the first country to put officials on trial — and convict them — for unlawful rendition to torture. Despite the missed opportunity, Italy should see the process of accountability it started through to the end,” according to Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch
Italy’s highest court’s ruling in the case — that revives the subject of “rendition” — stands in contrast to the U.S. refusing to prosecute those agents and contracted employees involved in the CIA’s rendition program following the terrorist attacks against New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, claims officials at Human Rights Watch.
In September 2012, Supreme Court of Cassation, Italy’s answer to the U.S. Supreme Court, upheld Lady’s conviction in September 2012, and sentenced him to nine years in prison for his role in the abduction of the terrorism suspect and his rendition to President Hasni Mubarak’s Egyptian secret service.
According to the Italian prosecutors, in February 2003, wanted Islamist Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr — a/k/a Abu Omar — was nabbed by U.S. counterterrorism operatives and secretly flown to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured.
“Abu Omar was hustled off the streets of Milan into a van and flown from the US Air Force base in Aviano, Italy to Egypt via Ramstein Air Force base in Germany,” said Human Rights Watch officials.
Originally 23 American citizens were convicted in the rendition case all of them convicted in absentia under procedures that were amended to afford in absentia defendants greater rights following a 1985 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
Abu Omar alleges that he was tortured repeatedly during the nearly four years he was held in Egyptian custody. He was released from prison without charge in February 2007.
In December 2007, Abu Omar told Human Rights Watch that he was violently abused upon his arrival in Egypt. “You cannot imagine… I was hung up like a slaughtered sheep and given electric shocks,” he said. “I was brutally tortured and could hear the screams of others who were tortured too.”
“Human Rights Watch is concerned that trials in absentia do not afford defendants an adequate opportunity to present a defense, as required under the international fair trial standards. Should Italian law enforcement authorities gain custody over Lady, or any of the other defendants, they should have the right to ask the Italian courts for a new trial,” Human Rights Watch officials said.
– Erasia review
