War in Bizarro World
A Milan judge on Friday ordered 26 Americans, most of them thought to be CIA agents, to stand trial with Italian spies for the 2003 kidnapping of a Muslim cleric, who says he was flown to Egypt and tortured there…
[Prosecutor Armando] Spataro says a CIA-led team, with SISMI’s help, grabbed Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, off a Milan street in February 2003, bundled him into a van and drove him to a military base in northern Italy. From there, prosecutors allege the CIA flew him via Germany to Egypt where he says he was tortured with electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse.
He was released from prison on Sunday and says he would like to return to Italy, where an Italian judge has issued a warrant for his arrest over suspicion of terrorist activity.
So let’s get this straight. An Italian judge wants to put 26 Americans, working in cooperation with Italy’s intelligence service, on trial for kidnapping some guy. But the guy was living in Italy because his native Egypt considered him a terrorist. And if he returns to Italy he’ll get arrested there too, since Italy now also considers him a terrorist. But another Italian judge wants to put 26 Americans on trial for mistreating the terrorist, or rather for sending the terrorist to his home country.
This is some war we’re having.