This is great:
In March 2003, the Italian national anti-terrorism police received an urgent message from the CIA about a radical Islamic cleric who had mysteriously vanished from Milan a few weeks before. The CIA reported that it had reliable information that the cleric, the target of an Italian criminal investigation, had fled to an unknown location in the Balkans.
In fact, according to Italian court documents and interviews with investigators, the CIA’s tip was a deliberate lie, part of a ruse designed to stymie efforts by the Italian anti-terrorism police to track down the cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian refugee known as Abu Omar.
***“The kidnapping of Abu Omar was not only a serious crime against Italian sovereignty and human rights, but it also seriously damaged counterterrorism efforts in Italy and Europe,” said Armando Spataro, the lead prosecutor in Milan. “In fact, if Abu Omar had not been kidnapped, he would now be in prison, subject to a regular trial, and we would have probably identified his other accomplices.”
Spataro declined to comment on any specifics of the investigation because the case is pending in the Italian courts. The CIA declined to comment.
Make of it what you will.
Steve S
We’ll torture the information out of him?
Good thing we re-opened up Stalin’s gulag in Kazakhstan.
Jack Roy
Uhh…. what? Granted, house arrest ain’t exactly like ROR, but it doesn’t sound like a very successful investigation / prosectution to me. The Italians might have a point (although I am … suspicious of their hope that he’d have turned state’s evidence by now).
TBone
Even though Italy has effective law enforcement personnel, the system it is completely hamstrung by the Italian magistrate. A magistrate is the single point-of-failure in most investigations. He is usually the only person who can interview suspects after they’ve been arrested. He authorizes the investigations, decides which Italian law enforcement agencies are privvy to the case file, etc. Sometimes several different agencies are working the same case, but don’t know of the efforts of others because a magistrate in one jurisdiction is not cooperating with another magistrate from somewhere else. This leads to badguys going free.
Historically, suspected terrorists are set free by the magistrate for “lack of evidence” (read: political expediency). Just recently, hundreds of suspects were arrested in a broad sweep for terrorists. Watch carefully to see if any of them are convicted. The call on the part of the magistrate to make an arrest is subjective, and the final disposition of the case is often driven by political motives. The appearance (politically) of inclusion and fairness (on one hand), or strength (on the other) takes precedence over other factors (silly things like guilt) when he makes his decision.
Abu Omar is probably in better hands where he is now. The only reason this is even an issue is to gain leverage in upcoming elections. The Italians are probably secretly happy to see him gone from the country because now they don’t have to deal with it.
Horshu
It’s difficult when cases like this pop up to argue that America as a single entity doesn’t believe itself to be both the world’s father/mother, who knows what’s best for you, and also the world’s policeman, who will do what he knows what is right for you whether you know/like it or not.
Unless of course, proof were to come out that the Italian leadership was involved in both the abduction and a coverup.
Jason Van Steenwyk
If the Italians were so on top of this guy, then how come the ruse could even work?
Sorry. Doesn’t wash. If the Italians were really on top of this guy, then he couldn’t be kidnapped on the street by CIA agents in the first place.
If he could be kidnapped by CIA agents on the street without the Italian securety agencies knowing, then he was a flight risk. The Italians look pretty silly, here.
There’s also no evidence whatsoever that they could have arrested his accomplices or turned Nasr state’s evidence. He is just as likely to spill his guts in Egypt as in Italy, and probably even more so.
Stormy70
This story came out several months ago.
DougJ
Jason’s right: you really think those dumb guineas really had it together enough to hunt Al Qaeda on their own? Yeah, right…
DougJ
No, Stormy, not the part about it purportedly disrupting an investigation. That part is new.
jg
Well then we should just drop it. Why do you libruls always look back? Can’t you see the beautiful future that we could get to if you’d just let things go? As Homer once said:’everything’s bad if you remember it’. This whole thing will be judged in 20 years so there’s no point in looking at cause and effect now as if there was anything to do about it. Stay the course you librul assholes.
Jason Van Steenwyk
Oh, the Italians, at their best, are very capable.
But that doesn’t mean they devoted the resources to maintain a 24-hour surveillance on this guy. For whatever reason, he seems to have been more important to us than to the Italians.
Imagine! The CIA using a ruse! What’s the world coming to?
ThomasD
So this was a covert CIA operation? Just how do the Italians know it was the CIA who snatched him? This is an old story bering recycled for purely political reasons.
Read between the lines. The Italians knew who this guy was, and knew they didn’t want him run throught the system in the usual way. As previously mentioned there is no way the guy was snatched from under their roman noses; they were complicit in the whole operation. But, like the Pakistanis who can’t admit that an US predator drone whacked that AQ guy, the Italians won’t admit that this operation was at least approved, if not requested, by their own government.
So now some politicians in Italy think they can gain partisan advantage by laying this out in the open. Given the number of hard core leftists and old line communists still active in Italy, they are probably right.
Richard Bottoms
And the reason anyone should ever vote Republican again is what now?
QuickRob
IThomasD, I think you’re on the right track. At my site I have an old post about this case. It seems that even Abu Omar said Italians were involved in his abduction.
And if the Italians didn’t know then as this guy says that means the Italians were sleeping on the job. Read the last paragraph of that article.
Right Here is an update Also update at post # 99 and I think 98.
I haven’t followed it much since then, so I can’t say how much of that has been refuted. it seemed like a joint US/CIA operation, and is Aviano a joint US/Italian base?
Sherard
Riiiiight… So the Italian Police (the organization that basically GAVE us the mafia) would have extracted information from a willing prisoner more effectively than the CIA.
No, I’m not convinced.
And No, I’m not overly concerned about the CIA operating in Italy. If you don’t think they are doing that very thing in probably every single sovereign nation on earth, then you are rather naive.
J. Michael Neal
Please note that the Italian intelligence services being involved in this operation wouldn’t make it legal under Italian law; it would only mean that their government broke the law as well.
Remfin
We already knew this happened. We even knew it screwed an investigation that was closing. This was the story that really put the rendition thing on the map originally, that triggered the NYT investigating the CIA planes (which is how it ended up pretty well confirmed, the Italians were just accusing with no proof before that story broke)
What we did NOT know was that the CIA pulled a “whew, who farted??”
Jason Van Steenwyk
J. Michael Neal,
So would you have voted to aquit Adolf Eichmann? Would you have voted to send him back to Argentina?
If not, why not?
Jason Van Steenwyk
Democrats. Which, unfortunately, is reason enough.
Lines
Wit and Intelligence, rolled into one little ball of genuine pig shit called Jason Van Steenwyk
jg
Only if you’re an idiot is that reason enough. Unfortunately there are a lot of idiots who are registered voters who look for reasons to vote agsinst democrats and there are plenty of republican candidates who cater to that.
StupidityRules
Jason Van Steenwyk said:
You can’t compare Abu Omar to Adolf Eichmann, and Italy with Argentina in the sixties…
Israel kidnapping the man behind the holocaust from a country know to be a safe haven for nazis… That would be more comparable to the US kidnapping Bin Laden from Pakistan or Afghanistan…
Davebo
But we aren’t operating any secret prisons in Eastern Europe…. Anymore..
Polish Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told ABC Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross today: “My president has said there is no truth in these reports.”
Ross asked: “Do you know otherwise, sir, are you aware of these sites being shut down in the last few weeks, operating on a base under your direct control?”
Sikorski answered, “I think this is as much as I can tell you about this.”
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1375123
DougJ
Jason, you make some good points. What the liberals fail to realize is that *trials have outlived their usefulness.* The way things work today, we can gather another information on suspected terrorists and other miscreants that we can ascertain their guilt or innocent without any input from a court. Better just to grab them rather than waste thousands battling some crackpot ACLU lawyer and risk possibility that the people on the jury fall for the lawyer’s weepy story about mistaken identity.
Trials, courts, “due process”…that was all fine, or so it seemed, before 9/11. But we’re living in a post 9/11 world now.
Richard Bottoms
Meanwhile the gang that couldn’t shoot straight failed once again to convict a “terrorist” when given the chance.
The case against Sami Al-Arian, 47, had been seen as one of the biggest courtroom tests yet of the Patriot Act’s expanded search-and-surveillance powers.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/06/professor.terror.charges.ap/index.html
Maybe all this rendetion stuff is covering up incompetence?? No, that couldn’t be it.
John S.
Sure he can. Jason is a Bush-style conservative, which means he gets to make shit up as he goes along.
And if you dare disagree with him, you’re a Nazi lover.
Charlie (Colorado)
Man, you’ve got to really feel like a fool when the CIA manages to fool you.
Stormy70
This story came out in the summer.
It mentioned the disruption in several articles at the time it came out. How did such “reality-based” posters miss such an important story. It even hit Indymedia.
Jason
Well, I was just trying to quickly establish just how important this issue of sovereignty was. But if it’s ok for the Israelis to trash Argentinian sovreignty to snatch someone, then obviously it’s not very important at all.
Oh, I wouldn’t compare Omar’s crimes to Eichmann’s crimes at all. But I can sure compare one instance of an extralegal abduction by intelligence officers of an individual in a foreign and sovereign country to another. The issues raised under international law, so to speak, are exactly the same.
The question is, do we think that the sovereignty of a third party nation ought to trump a state interest in taking a terrorist off the streets? The consensus seems to be no.
At least in Eichmann’s case, you could argue – as many on the left argue in defending Saddam, that his crimes were many years in the past, and that he was no longer a threat to Jews or anyone else.
Where as there is reason to believe that Omar, unlike Eichmann, was an active threat in the middle of conspiring to murder others.
Me, I’d go after both of those bastards hammer and tongs. I have no double standard to defend.
As for due process, what, exactly, entitles a non-American member of Al Qaeda (or so I assume here – no one seems to be asserting differently), captured abroad, to any more “due process” under American law than Ramzi Bin Al Sheikh or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
You’re mistakenly applying “due process” principals under American law to a case where American law in no way applies. IF he is affiliated with terrorists, then he is an unlawful combatant. The Italians obviously aren’t asserting his innocence. They wanted to roll him up with some co-conspirators.
Lines:
Go on back to playing in mudpuddles, lad.
Come on back when you’re capable of discoursing as an adult. We’ll be here.
John S.
Oh, I suppose falsely stating that ‘many’ people on the left defend Saddam Hussein in the same manner that one would defend Adolf Eichmann passes for rational discourse?
My you are a strange fellow.
Steve S
Fascinating. If you believe in the Rule of Law, you are a Nazi lover.
ppGaz
It’s rerun season, until January.
SeesThroughIt
Because if you don’t, the commies will send you to college and give you the gay.
ppGaz
Wait … aren’t you the Jason who was calling everyone a bunch of ignorant morons just the other day?
If not, consider the suggestion withdrawn.
But if so ….. is the official Death of Irony?
Jason
Yep. Because with regard to the subject matter at hand, specifically the use of white phosphorous, or information operations at the operational and tactical level, they objectively WERE ignorant. As in, simply not equipped to have an informed discussion.
Which is no crime, until you’re confronted with factual information, and stick to your guns anyway. Which earns you the “moron” label.
This topic is different, because I doubt anyone here brings any special insight into the abduction of this Omar fellow, beyond what’s available in the press.
Which, come to think of it, ought to give one pause.
I also don’t carry grudges from topic to topic.
Apparently Lines does, but that’s really his problem.
Much better to start fresh, and take each topic on its own terms.
Jason
Don’t be stupid. That’s your construction. I never said or implied anything of the sort.
Perry Como
That happened when Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.
John S.
Sure, I’ll buy that. However, you do seem fond of saying or implying that ‘many’ people on the left defend Saddam Hussein in the same manner that one would defend Adolf Eichmann.
Which is a far cry from calling people ‘Nazi lovers’ or ‘Saddam lovers’.