Italian court convicts 23 CIA agents for extraordinary rendition

The Italian court this week (4 November) convicted 21 CIA operatives and a US air force officer in the first successful European prosecution relating to the practice of “extraordinary rendition” or in plain English, kidnap.

The operatives were each sentenced to 5 years in prison and the former head of the CIA in Milan, Robert Seldon Lady, was given an 8 year sentence for the CIA’s role in the kidnapping of Abu Omar in 2003. All the Americans were tried in absentia and are now considered fugitives. The New York Times reports that Armando Spataro, the prosecutor, said he was considering asking the Italian government for an international arrest warrant for the operatives.

Abu Omar was stopped by police in Italy on February 17 2003. Before any legal proceedings had been brought against him, he was handed over to the CIA and transferred to a US air base in Aviano, near Venice. From there, he was taken to a base in Germany (Ramstein) and subsequently on to Egypt where he was beaten, tortured with electricity and threatened with rape. He remained there for 4 years, before being released in 2007.

The US State Department spokesman expressed “disappointment” at the judgment and said that they would appeal. The CIA has refused to comment on the case.

Sabrina deSousa, one of the Americans convicted by the Italian court, said in an interview with ABC News that she was unhappy about the way in which the CIA had handled the prosecution, claiming that the operatives have been “left to fend for themselves” and insisting that everything she had done had been approved by Washington.

And that is the problem. This first prosecution and its result are positive, in that they resemble an initial step towards CIA accountability for rendition and torture.

However, first, the agents in question were not in the country and so will not actually be punished. Secondly, they are being used as scapegoats - neither Jeff Castelli, the then head of the CIA in Italy, nor the former head of Italy's military intelligence service, Nicolo Pollari, could be convicted because of diplomatic immunity and / or the fact that the evidence against them was subject to such secrecy restrictions. And finally, because the agents did not appear at the trial, they did not give evidence in their defence that they were simply following orders, and so we do not have the details of what who instructed the agents to do what.

However, it is perhaps churlish to complain about the shortcomings of the Milan court decision. The fact that a European State has actually convicted CIA agents for their involvement in rendition and torture is a huge step forwards and does, at least, mean that those agents face some accountability for their actions, albeit only in curtailing their movements, such that they can no longer work or play in Europe.

President Obama has not ruled out the practice of extraordinary rendition, indeed, he has said that it might be necessary, and has thus propagated the image of the US as a nation outside the law. If the Milan court judgment serves only one purpose, it will hopefully at least indicate to the Obama administration that if it doesn’t hold its agents accountable for their illegal activities, other countries will.