Evidence said to tie Italy, CIA in kidnap

ZURICH, Switzerland -- Italian prosecutors said yesterday they had developed firm evidence that an Italian intelligence agency collaborated with the CIA to kidnap a radical Islamic cleric in Milan in 2003. The finding prompted the arrest of two high-ranking Italian intelligence officials and the issuing of warrants for four Americans.

The Milan prosecutor's office announced that the two arrested figures in Sismi, the Italian military intelligence agency, were charged with kidnapping and abusing public office.

Warrants for the arrest of three unnamed CIA officers and a military officer brought the number of Americans charged in the case to 26 .

None of them have been arrested.

Authorities also did not name the Sismi officials , but Italian media identified them as Marco Mancini, head of military counterespionage, and Gustavo Pignero, Sismi's chief for northern Italy at the time of the kidnapping.

They allegedly worked with the CIA to abduct Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, an Egyptian imam who was seized walking to a Milan mosque in February 2003 and flown to Cairo on a US-registered aircraft.

According to court documents, Omar has said he was jailed by Egyptian security agents, who subjected him to electric shocks and other forms of abuse.

The case has drawn intense criticism throughout Europe from human-rights groups and politicians who call it an example of how the CIA and its allies in European intelligence agencies have abused their powers and circumvented the law when dealing with terrorism suspects.

Counterterrorism police and prosecutors in Milan have also expressed anger, saying the CIA violated Italian sovereignty and disrupted a major criminal investigation by abducting Nasr. Milan authorities said they had Nasr under electronic surveillance and were close to arresting him when he disappeared.

Sismi officials and Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister at the time of the kidnapping and a close ally of the Bush administration, have repeatedly denied that Italian government officials took part in the kidnapping or knew anything about it. But the arrests of Mancini and Pignero indicate that a judge has agreed with prosecutors that there is evidence of Sismi's involvement.

Several Italian and European lawmakers said yesterday the arrests confirmed what they had suspected all along: that the Italian government worked directly with the CIA to kidnap Nasr.

The CIA declined to comment.