Italy Convicts CIA Agents of Kidnapping and Rendition

Well, at least there's justice for 'extraordinary rendition' victims in one jurisdiction in this world.

In the case of Abu Omar who was snatched from the streets of Milan in 2003 and rendered to Egypt to be tortured (known as the 'Imam rapito affair' in Italy), Human Rights Watch weighs in:

(Milan) - An Italian court's conviction of 23 agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for kidnapping is an historic repudiation of the CIA's crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. The Milan court also found that two Italian officials illegally collaborated in CIA abuses.

The judge said he could not pronounce any verdict against five of the seven Italians on trial for the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam because they were protected by the state secrecy doctrine. Of the 26 Americans who were on trial, all of them in absentia, the court found that three were protected by diplomatic immunity guarantees.

Robert Seldon Lady, alleged to be the CIA station chief in Milan at the time of the kidnapping, received an eight-year sentence, the most serious penalty that the court handed down in the case. [See his 'I was only following orders' defense here. -catnip]

"The Milan court sent a powerful message: the CIA can't just abduct people off the streets. It's illegal, unacceptable, and unjustified," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism program director at Human Rights Watch. "Both the Italian and US governments should now be on notice that justice authorities will not ignore crimes committed under the guise of fighting terrorism."

...

The verdicts today also stand in stark contrast to a disappointing decision issued on November 2 by a US federal appellate court in New York, which dismissed the suit brought by Canadian rendition victim Maher Arar. Arar was detained while in transit at John F. Kennedy airport in September 2002, then rendered by the CIA to Jordan and Syria, where he was brutally tortured for nearly a year.

Arar won't find justice in the United States - not when Obama has decided to continue the rendition program while providing legal cover for CIA agents who flagrantly break the law. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss... His administration may have walked away from the 'Global War on Terror" moniker of Bushco but it's obviously still very much in play.

And, if you followed the Niger/yellowcake forgery story closely, you'll remember this name:

The Italian defendants included Gen. Nicolò Pollari, the former head of SISMI, Italy's military intelligence service, who was forced to resign over Abu Omar's abduction and rendition, and Pollari's former deputy, Marco Mancini.

in 2005, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported, as translated by The American Prospect, that in the 2002 run up to the Iraq war, Pollari had a suspicious meeting with then deputy National Security adviser Stephen Hadley.

The paper goes on to note the significance of that date, highlighting the appearance of a little-noticed story in Panorama a weekly magazine owned by Italian Prime Minister and Bush ally Silvio Berlusconi, that was published three days after Pollari's meeting with Hadley. The magazine's September 12, 2002, issue claimed that Iraq's intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat, had acquired 500 tons of uranium from Nigeria through a Jordanian intermediary. (While this September 2002 Panorama report mentioned Nigeria, the forgeries another Panorama reporter would be proferred less than a month later purportedly concerned Niger.)

The Sismi chief's previously undisclosed meeting with Hadley, who was promoted earlier this year to national security adviser, occurred one month before a murky series of events culminated in the U.S. government obtaining copies of the Niger forgeries.

Thick as thieves (and forgers and kidnappers and torturers and murderers) - the lot of them.

Crocodile tears from one of those found guilty:

EXCLUSIVE: Convicted CIA Spy Says "We Broke the Law"

One of the 23 Americans convicted today by an Italian court says the United States "broke the law" in the CIA kidnapping of a Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.

"And we are paying for the mistakes right now, whoever authorized and approved this," said former CIA officer Sabrina deSousa in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson.

DeSousa says the U.S. "abandoned and betrayed" her and the others who were put on trial for the kidnapping. She was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.

Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), a member of the House Intelligence Committee told ABC News that the trial was a disaster for CIA officers like DeSousa on the frontline.

"I think these people have been put out there. They've been hung out to dry. They're taking the fall potentially for a decision that was made by their superiors in our agencies. It's the wrong place to go."

Just which part of kidnapping is illegal and is punishable under the law didn't DeSousa understand? The Nuremberg defense rears its ugly head once again. And exactly how is she "paying" for anything? She's free, obviously. No one rendered her to Italy to actually stand trial.

And having Hoekstra as your number one defender? What a joke. The minute he calls for prosecutions of Bush administration officials - those "superiors", let me know.

Related:

Scott Horton: Judgment in Milan
 
 

Quote du Jour: Omar Khadr's Despair

"I always say that I've never seen anyone who's been so abused and so abandoned by so many who should know better."

CSIS ignored Khadr's human rights: report
 

Obama and "the Muslim world"

For weeks, the press has been previewing "Obama's speech to the Muslim world". Where is that world, exactly?

I've checked maps and even a small globe - nope - no "Muslim world".

Maybe it's somewhere near the Christian world, the Hindu world, the Buddhist world or the Jewish world because I couldn't find any of those either.

If Obama's speech was meant to reach the largest number of Muslims in one country, self-admittedly he should have stayed home.

In an interview with Laura Haim on Canal Plus, a French television station, Mr. Obama noted that the United States also could be considered as “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”

Hmmm...according to the CIA Factbook there are fewer Muslims in the US than Buddhists - a whopping 0.6%. (The state department begs to differ.)

And did you know that "only 15% of Muslims are Arab"?

So, why is Obama in Egypt reaching out to "the Muslim world" again?

And while he's doing that is it too much to ask that he actually tell the truth?

Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.

America is very much "the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire" and until Obama grasps that fact, what's the point of trying to convince anybody else of his intentions?

It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

Says the man for whom the Afghanistan war has now become a war of choice in which the Pentagon always immediately and steadfastly denies the killing of civilians yet is forced to admit the truth when it can no longer be covered up. The latest example: US military admits errors in air strikes that killed scores of Afghan civilians.

That's scores.

140 dead civilians.

Now, what was it Obama just said about cowardice? And exactly how does he expect to win the hearts and minds of Afghans and the so-called "Muslim world" again?

And after providing the same old lip service to the long-dead Middle East "road map" (does he really think Netanyahu will ever concede anything?), continuing on with the things he must talk about while he's over there, he played these word games:

I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation – including Iran – should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.

Now, what kind of response can a realist have to that rhetoric beyond a simple "get real"?

Shorter Obama:

1. No nation can say who should have nuclear weapons.
2. The US says nobody should have nuclear weapons.
3. Iran must comply with the NNPT. India, Israel, and Pakistan (which already have nuclear weapons)? Not so much. (And raise your hand if you really believe the US will ever get rid of its nukes...)

Ergo, if I lived in the elusive "Muslim world", I'd be more than a bit skeptical when it's quite obvious that words still trump deeds in Middle Eastern affairs and how they're still being dealt with by the US government.

Lastly, I don't think I need to detail the obvious contradictions in this bit of flourish compared to Obama's record since he became president. (For those who remain clueless, simply read the writings of Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Glen Ford, Tom Englehardt, Andy Worthington and so many others if you're ready to give up this kind of adolescent girl-like fawning over Obama.)

No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

"True democracy" - has it ever existed in the United States according to that definition?

Stay tuned next week when Obama addresses the "Christian world" about violence against abortion providers and whoever else they might have their (gun) sights set on.

Or not.