Why the Trial of CIA operatives in Italy went ahead.

The Italian govt. had tried to derail the trial from the beginning and has refused to request extradition of the accused CIA agents. It seems to me that one reason the trial has gone ahead is that the operation was done without the knowledge of key Italian authorities who were also investigating Abu Omar and building a case against him. Once he was kidnapped this completely frustrated their ongoing investigation. Some elements in the Italian secret service obviously conspired with the Americans and some were convicted but not the key figures. The same is true of most of the Americans who got off because of diplomatic immunity or because evidence could not be revealed which might convict them! However the trial does show that there is an outside chance that someone can be convicted for being involved with rendition and that is positive. Obama has not renounced the practice and the present head of the CIA says the practice will continue but of course people will be rendered only to states that promise not to torture. That is no different from Bush who also got assurances from countries such as Syria that they would not torture!

""Italian judge convicts 23 in CIA kidnap case
By COLLEEN BARRY and VICTOR L. SIMPSON (AP) - 1 hour ago

MILAN - An Italian judge found 23 Americans and two Italians guilty Wednesday in the kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect, delivering the first legal convictions anywhere in the world against people involved in the CIA's extraordinary renditions program.

Human rights groups hailed the decision and pressed President Barack ObamaBarack Obama to repudiate the Bush administration's practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries where torture was permitted.

The Obama administration ended the CIA's interrogation program and shuttered its secret overseas jails in January but has opted to continue the practice of extraordinary renditions.

The Americans, who were tried in absentia, now cannot travel to Europe without risking arrest as long as the verdicts remains in place.

...The case has been politically charged from the beginning, with attempts to mislead investigators looking into the cleric's disappearance and derail the judicial proceedings once the trial was under way.

Three Americans were acquitted, including the then-Rome CIA station chief Jeffrey Castelli and two other diplomats formerly assigned to the Rome Embassy, as well as the former head of Italian military intelligence Nicolo Pollari and four other Italian secret service agents.

.....Former Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady received the top sentence of eight years in prison. The other 22 convicted American defendants, including a former Milan consular official, Sabrina De Sousa and Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph Romano, each received a five-year sentence. Two Italians got three years each as accessories.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the Obama administration was "disappointed about the verdicts."

The Americans, all but one identified by prosecutors as CIA agents, were tried in absentia as subsequent Italian governments refused or ignored prosecutors' extradition request - a position that casts doubts on the Italian government's political will to enforce the sentences.

Prosecutor Armando Spataro said he was considering asking Rome to issue international arrest warrants for the fugitive Americans on the strength of the convictions. The government of Silvio BerlusconiSilvio Berlusconi, a close ally of President George W. BushPresident George W. Bush, has previously refused.

The Americans and Italian agents were accused of kidnapping Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, on Feb. 17, 2003, in Milan, then transferring him to U.S. bases in Italy and Germany. He was then moved to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. He has since been released, but has not been permitted to leave Egypt to attend the trial.

Spataro had sought stiffer sentences ranging from 10 to 13 years in jail, citing a conspiracy between U.S. and Italian secret services to abduct Nasr, who was under surveillance by Italian investigators building their own terror case against him. ....