Earlier today an Italian court convicted in absentia twenty-two CIA officers and a colonel in the US Air Force of charges relating to the February 2003 kidnapping of Muslim cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr aka Abu Omar.
Abu Omar was a victim of the extraordinary rendition program established by the Clinton administration and greatly expanded under President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
He was snatched off the street in Milan and flown secretly to Cairo where he was handed off to Egyptian security officials. Abu Omar was tortured extensively in Egyptian custody. He was finally released without charge in 2007.
The Italian decision is a graphic illustration of just how damaging practices such as kidnapping and torture are to America’s national security.
Armando Spataro, the deputy Milan public prosecutor, told reporters:
“This decision sends a clear message to all governments that even in the fight against terrorism you can’t forsake the basic rights of our democracies.”