CIA:n kidnappausoperaatio horjuttaa Italian ja Yhdysvaltain suhteita
talian pääministeri Silvio Berlusconi vaatii Yhdysvaltojen Italian-suurlähettiläältä selitystä operaatiosta, jossa CIA kidnappasi imaami Abu Omarin Milanossa, italialaisministeri Carlo Giovanardi kertoi torstaina. Kaksi vuotta sitten tapahtuneesta operaatiosta tuli uutinen viime viikon perjantaina, kun roomalainen sanomalehti Corriere della Sera kertoi, että italialaistuomari oli antanut pidätysmääräyksen 13:sta CIA:n agentista.
Ongelmallisen tilanteesta tekee se, että Italia väittää, ettei se tiennyt operaatiosta mitään eikä olisi antanut sille lupaa. CIA on puolestaan kertonut, että operaatiolle saatiin Italian turvallisuuspalvelun hyväksyntä. Lisäksi CIA:n mukaan on normaali käytäntö, että tiedot kidnappausoperaatioista annetaan vain tietyille tahoille. Epäselvää on se, tiesikö pääministeri Berlusconin toimisto asiasta. Yhdysvaltojen suurlähettilään odotetaan antavan asiasta selvityksen perjantaina.
Tapaus kaivertaa entisestään Italian ja Yhdysvaltojen välejä. Maaliskuussa tunteet kuohahtivat, kun Italian salaisen palvelun agentti Nicola Calipari sai surmansa Yhdysvaltojen tarkastusasemalla Bagdadissa.
Sama originaaliartikkeli käännettynä italiasta englantiin:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2005/06/open_thread_056.html
Milan -- Milan police are searching for 13 CIA agents accused of kidnapping. According to the indictment they organized and executed the kidnapping of Imam Abu Omar (real name: NasrOsama Mustafa Hassan), kidnapped in Milan on Feb 17 2003 and tranferred via air to Egypt where he was brutally tortured. The CIA station chief for Milan is among the agents named in the arrest warrants. In 2003 he was an accredited as a diplomat ("United States Consul in Italy") and was suddenly replaced a few months ago. Among the commando squad of American secret agents, who as of yesterday morning are formally on the wanted list, are three women: "Cynthia" and a hispanic-american friend made up a "relay team", while by car "Monica" kept watch of the access roads.
The strategy The leadership of the CIA have publically claimed, in public hearings after September 11, to have carried out over 70 "extraordinary renditions" -- "special deliveries" of suspects in international terrorism captured overseas by American 007's and secretly transferred to their homelands - but they have always denied complicity in the violence inflicted on these special categories of detainees. However the most important organizations for human rights accuse the Bush administration of having thereby legitimized a system of "rent a torturer", contracted out to allied Arab states like Egypt in order to avoid getting dirty hands. Now, for the first time, the Milan magistrates write that they have documentary proof that this strategy of illegal arrests was also applied in Italy. It was done so by the 13 agents whose cover names, cell-phone numbers, photos, passports, credit cards and the U.S. home addresses as declared to the Milan hotels where they stayed (divided into groups) during the week of the kidnapping have all been uncovered by the police (DIGOS)
The CIA Hotels The kidnapping of the Milan Imam was an expensive affair: the CIA agents paid more than 120,000 euro just for lodging in the most luxurious hotels in Milan, as is documented by the investigation. All were 5 star hotels like the Hilton, Sheraton, Gallia, and Principe di Savoia. On February 19, while the torture of Abu Omar was beginning in the Egypt prison camp, the leaders of the American commando unit got together in the Westin Europa Hotel in Venice to evaluate the mission and celebrate the successful "rendition" from Milan to Egypt. Before disappearing from Italy, two couples of CIA agents from the group, allowed themselves a vacation in romantic hotels in Valmalenco and the Gulf of Poets
The Error
Käännös by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | June 24, 2005 04:40 AMA strange gaffe betrayed the CIA: the American agents used Italian cell phones for communication even on the day and the very minutes of the kidnapping. The DIGOS police officers, the same who had been investigating Abu Omar since 2002 per international terrorism, were thus able to isolate a total of 17 cell phones, all of which had been active in via Guerzoni between 12.28 and 12.33 on the day of the kidnapping. Abu Omar was kidnapped in via Guerzoni that day while he was walking from his home to the nearby mosque in viale Jenner. There was an eye-witness to the kidnapping: an Egyptian woman saw two fake Italian policemen stop Abu Omar who "called for help in Arabic" while he was being forcibly "loaded into a white van without rear windows". The investigation revealed that immediately after the kidnapping, the cell phone of the presumed chief of the operation made a call to an unlisted number of the U.S. consulate in Milan and the personal cell phone of "Bob", that is of the CIA station chief. A second group of American agents then took care of driving the hostage to the U.S. Airbase at Aviano in a van with two escort cars rented in Milan, as proved an analysis of the "radiobase cells" (the antennas of Telecom and Wind [two Italian cell phone firms]) that were activated along the way by 9 cell phones. The DIGOS [police] have also found the 3 electronic passcards used by the three vehicles to pay the toll-road fees. They entered at Milano-Cormano and exited at 4:00pm at the Portogruaro toll booth.
From Aviano to Cairo
At 4:13pm and 4:32pm the cell phone of the commando team leader called the unlisted number of a Colonel at the U.S. airbase in Aviano. According to the indictment, these calls served to signal the team's arrival and to avoid Italian military control points. At 6:20 pm a CIA front plane (a Learjet with military identification number "Spar 92" which means "unidentifiable person on board") took off from Aviano for Ramstein, the U.S. base in Germany which also hosts the European headquarters of the CIA. From there, at 8:31 pm, a second executive jet (code number N85VM) left for Cairo> The is a Gulfstream which is registered to the Boston Red Sox, whose owner, however confirmed to the Chicago Tribune that he had actually rented in to the CIA. As 0:30 AM the CIA team leader called an unlisted number in Virginia, the state in which CIA headquarters is located. Mission accomplished. Already the next morning, 18 February 2003, Abu Omar was locked up in the Egyptian prison Al Tora, where the interrogations and torture began. The Milan district attorney's office made two requests for official information on the fate of the imam, but Egypt never responded.The Mysteries
All the cell phones used by the kidnappers are outside the law, since they are registered under false names, or to non-existent companies, or even to an innocent citizen of Milan or an unwitting Rumanian stonemason. However, the CIA agents had to show their American passports (with their photos) to register 23 times in hotels and to make 4 autorentals. There the police could confiscate the photocopies of their documents, which turn out to be authentic, although probably made out to cover names. What is surely authentic is the identity of "Bob" who was known to the police as the CIA station chief. Judge Chiara Nobili ordered the arrest of only those agents for whom the evidence of guilt is considered to be "serious". However, the investigation conducted by Assistant District Attorneys Armanda Spataro and Ferdinando Enrico Pomarici is much wider in scope, and involves at least six agents who took part in the preparatory "casing" of the site, observing the imam until 10 February. But many questions remain open without answer: Is it possible that the CIA carried out a kidnapping without advising the government of its Italian ally? And who were the two "fake policemen" who, "speaking in Italian", stopped Abu Omar."
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