ROME, 2 July 2005 — Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi demanded yesterday that the United States show full respect for Italian sovereignty, after summoning the US ambassador to explain an alleged CIA abduction of a Muslim cleric in Milan.
“The prime minister demanded full respect for Italian sovereignty from the United States,” said a statement issued by the prime minister’s office after an hour-long meeting.
Washington’s top envoy here, Mel Sembler, was called to clarify the affair of an Egyptian Muslim cleric, allegedly seized by the CIA in a Milan street in 2003 and missing since.
He promised to show absolute respect for Italian sovereignty.
“Ambassador Sembler, in the name of his government, repeated that the respect was full and total, and that it would remain so in the future,” the statement said.
Osama Mustafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, was reportedly seized in a Milan street on February 17, 2003 by two Italian-speakers claiming to want to check his identity. He has been missing ever since.
The incident made the news last week when the Corriere della Sera daily reported that a judge had issued arrest warrants for 13 agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
They were accused of abducting Hassan and taking him to the US military base at Aviano in northern Italy before transferring him to Egypt, where his entourage claim he was tortured during interrogation.
Corriere della Sera said Thursday that even if Rome did not know about the abduction “it would be strange that the government had not asked the secret service for a report on such an embarrassing affair”.
Italy’s Minister for Parliamentary Relations Carlo Giovanardi denied any such operation “had ever been authorized” by Italy or that “Italian secret services had taken part”.
But the CIA “told a number of people” in the Italian secret service about its kidnapping plan, but “certainly not the magistrate, nor the Milan police,” an unnamed CIA veteran told The Washington Post.
The newspaper’s sources said the CIA station chief in Rome — who has since retired but remains undercover — briefed and sought approval from his counterpart in Italy for the operation, but it was unclear how far up the chain of command the information was shared or whether Berlusconi’s office was aware.
Intelligence officials also told the Post that the CIA had conducted more than 100 such apprehensions since Sept. 11.
Group Hunting Militants Broken Up
Italian authorities have broken up an illegal group, which included some law enforcement officers, that sought to hunt down militants, prosecutors said yesterday.
Prosecutors in the port city of Genoa said the group was founded last year largely with private donations from its wealthy members just after the March 2004 Madrid train bombings.
Two of the suspected leaders of the “Department of Strategic Anti-Terrorism Studies” were also put under house arrest.
The group allegedly falsified law enforcement badges and attempted to tap into protected files at the Interior Ministry, prosecutors said.
Some 25 people were being investigated, roughly half of whom are with Italian law enforcement, prosecutors said.
In a statement, the prosecutors’ office said the apparent involvement of police was “particularly worrying”.
The group also ran an Internet site, in which it compared itself to the police and offered highly specialized research needed to identify and prevent a possible militant attack. It asked for anonymous tips on militant activity.
Prosecutors said the group sought to illegally bolster Italy’s fight against international and domestic terrorists, and wanted to become recognized by the United States and Israel to seek international funding for its still-unknown operations.
