MILAN, ITALY — As President Bush headed for Italy on Friday, a Milan court opened the trial of a group of CIA agents accused of kidnapping a radical Egyptian cleric -- the first legal prosecution of one of the administration's most controversial counter-terrorism tactics.
Twenty-six American defendants, including two CIA station chiefs and an Air Force colonel, are being tried in absentia in the 2003 abduction from a Milan sidewalk of the cleric known as Abu Omar.
The tactic under scrutiny in the case is called extraordinary rendition. It involves the capture of a terrorism suspect in one country and his transfer not to the U.S. but to a third for interrogation, without court orders or judicial oversight. In many cases, including this one, the suspects have said they were tortured. Human rights officials accuse the Bush administration of using scores of extraordinary renditions to "outsource" torture, an allegation Washington denies.
The 26 Americans left Italy before the first arrest warrants were issued two years ago, and none is expected to cooperate with the Milan proceedings.
This gave a sort of virtualreality feel to Friday's court session.
Judge Oscar Magi opened the trial, reading the indictment and ticking off the Americans' names, repeating 26 times: "Fugitive."
"Fugitive."
"Fugitive."
Court-appointed defense attorneys for each of the American defendants filled the courtroom, but the metal cages along the walls that usually contain suspects were empty. Most of the defense attorneys have never met or communicated with their clients, and in many cases don't even know their real names. (The agents allegedly used aliases in the Abu Omar operation.)
Seven Italians are also charged, including the country's former top spymaster and his No. 2, who are accused of sanctioning or aiding in the kidnap.
The Milan prosecution, along with similar cases in Germany and Switzerland, exposed the policy of renditions, which Bush was eventually forced to acknowledge. Only in Italy, however, has such a case gone to trial, a public forum that threatens to further illuminate the actions of CIA operatives and the long-denied complicity of their European counterparts.
"We want to punish terrorists -- but in the courtroom," Milan's lead prosecutor, Armando Spataro, said in commenting on the significance of the landmark trial. The war on terrorism, he said, should be waged "within the full respect of the laws of our Western democracies."
