ROME — What began as an investigation of the alleged CIA abduction of a radical Muslim cleric has mushroomed into a wider probe of possibly illegal domestic espionage by Italian intelligence agents compiling dossiers on judges, journalists and prosecutors.
Investigators raided the files of one intelligence agency Thursday, and journalists figured into the growing scandal as both the purported spies and the purported spied-upon.
Prosecutors who had two senior Italian intelligence officials arrested Wednesday in connection with the CIA case plan to interrogate six other officers from the same agency, known as SISMI, sources familiar with the widening probe said Thursday. The arrests were the first official acknowledgment of Italian involvement in the 2003 abduction of the cleric, who has said he was tortured after he was transported to Egypt.
Developments in that case sent shock waves through Italy's political establishment. But it now appears that activities by the intelligence agency, or a unit within it, went further into murky and possibly illegal territory.
Prosecutors suspect that SISMI agents were carrying out surveillance on journalists, magistrates and businesspeople and collecting the data in a massive secret archive at a government building in Rome, the sources said. Police began raiding offices housing the archive Wednesday and continued Thursday, hauling out loads of files and computer disks.
The sources requested anonymity because their information involved an open case.
The prospect that SISMI may have been engaged in an illicit domestic spying operation has raised serious questions about the roles of Nicolo Pollari, the agency's chief, and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. There were calls Thursday for a parliamentary inquiry.
Under Italian law, the country's secret services must inform judges before they investigate citizens connected to suspected crimes. SISMI is the military intelligence agency, one of three secret services.
"There is undoubtedly a need to discuss reforming the services," Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said Thursday as reporters questioned him about the new revelations. Amato said Italy must confront "the usual problem concerning the definition of a clear legal framework for intelligence operations."
"It is important to clearly define the limits" within which intelligence operations can be carried out, he said.
