Italy issues warrants in CIA kidnapping case

Prosecutors in Milan announced on Wednesday they had arrested two Italian intelligence officials and had issued warrants for the arrests of four Americans in connection with the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptianterrorism suspect in 2003.

The two Italian officials with the SISMI intelligence agency arrested were identified as Mario Mancini, the head of military counter-espionage, and Gustavo Pignero. They are charged with kidnapping.

The four Americans include three CIA agents and a person who worked at theAviano air force base, where prosecutors allege Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr was taken after his abduction from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003.

Nasr, an Egyptian cleric also known as Abu Omar, is suspected of recruiting young jihadists.

Prosecutors and a lawyer for Nasr say he is being held in a Cairo prison, where he was allegedly spiritedas part of a CIA program of sending terrorism suspects to countries that use torture during interrogations. The practice is known as "extraordinary rendition."

More than a year after he disappeared from Milan, Nasr's whereabouts became known when he made phone calls to friends and family from Egypt, claiming he'd been tortured.

Wednesday's warrants are in addition to 22 issued last year for other Americans alleged to have been involved in theabduction. In April, Italy's justice minister declined to request that those suspects be extradited from the United States.

InEgypt last week to visit President Hosni Mubarak, U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales acknowledged the U.S. had sent suspects to prisons in their home countries, but refused to say whether Egypt was on that list.

"I'm not going to confirm that there have been any and I'm certainly not going to talk about the numbers," Gonzales told reporters. "It's intelligence activity and we just don't do that.

"All I can say is that we do have an obligation to seek assurances from any country in which we are returning someone, that the individual is not going to be tortured."

Last month, the Council of Europe released a report that alleged that authorities in several European countries actively participated with the CIA in operating illegal detention centres and clandestine flights of suspects.

Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi has maintained his government and the secret service did not know about the operation.