EU: A Milan court has issued a European arrest warrant for 22 CIA agents suspected of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric from Italy's financial capital in 2003, prosecutor Armando Spataro said yesterday.
The case is one of several investigations into whether US intelligence agents used Europe to illegally transfer militant suspects to third countries for interrogation.
Milan magistrates suspect a CIA team grabbed Osama Nasr Hassan Mustafa off a Milan street and flew him for interrogation to Egypt, where he said he was tortured. Prosecutors asked the Italian justice ministry last month to seek the extradition of the suspects from the US, but justice minister Roberto Castelli has not yet decided whether to act on the request.
An EU warrant is automatically valid across the 25 nation states and does not require the approval of any government.
The warrant was agreed by the EU in the wake of the September 11th attacks in 2001. Under the agreement, any EU member state can ask another to hand over a suspect, and in most cases, the other state will have to comply.
Mr Spataro said he had also asked Interpol to try to detain the agents anywhere in the world.
Earlier this week, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said he did not believe CIA agents had kidnapped Mr Hassan, but added that governments would not defeat terrorism by playing by the rules. Justice officials believe Mr Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, is still in custody in Egypt. - (Reuters)