Italian court finds 23 CIA agents guilty of torture

The verdict is a damning indictment of the policy of extraordinary rendition pursued by the United States

LAST UPDATED 5:36 PM, NOVEMBER 4, 2009

In the biggest blow yet to the policy of extraordinary rendition pursued by the United States as part of its 'war on terror', 23 CIA agents have been found guilty of kidnap by an Italian court.

As reported by The First Post last month, the court heard how the agents abducted a Muslim cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, in Milan. They flew him first to Germany and then to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured. He was released years later without charge. The operation was notable for the sloppy way in which it was executed, with some agents staying on in Milan and using their own credit cards.

Twenty-two of the CIA agents were sentenced to five-year jail terms, while the twenty-third, the then-Milan station chief Robert Lady, was handed eight years. All 23 were tried in absentia and are unlikely to be brought to justice. Two Italian secret agents were also found guilty and sentenced to three years. Three other Americans and five Italians were acquitted.

LAST UPDATED 5:36 PM, NOVEMBER 4, 2009

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The staring point of this issue of accountability for criminal or tortious acts by government attorneys, employees, and judges should be the holding in United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 220 (1882), which stated that, [n]o man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives. (Emphasis added). But, during the past 35 years have litigated in federal court, there has been a greater denying to citizens of the right to hold government officials accountable, see, http://home.earthlink.net.malfeasance. More than 200 years ago Thomas Jefferson stated, that "[t]he germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body - working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

Posted by IsidoroRDL at 11:24am on November 5, 2009