Thread: US'Will Not Hand Over CIA Agents To Italy

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/658b2984-c753-11db-8078-

000b5df10621.html


US ‘will not hand over CIA agents to Italy’
By Sarah Laitner in Brussels

Published: February 28 2007 19:00 | Last updated: February 28 2007 19:00

Washington would refuse any demand by Rome to give up alleged Central Intelligence Agency operatives to face criminal trial on charges that the agency abducted terror suspects, a leading US official said.

John Bellinger, legal adviser to the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, said in Brussels: “We have not gotten that extradition request from Italy. If we got an extradition request from Italy, we would not extradite US officials to Italy.”


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An Italian judge last month ordered 25 alleged CIA operatives and the former head of Italy’s military intelligence service to go on trial on charges of kidnapping an Egyptian iman in Milan in 2003 and taking him to Egypt for interrogation.

Mr Bellinger, who was in Brussels to meet European legal advisers, is the first senior US official to say publicly that CIA agents would not be sent for trial abroad.

The US faces continued criticism from many Europeans over its contentious practice of kidnapping terrorist suspects on foreign soil after the September 11 attacks on America. In January, prosecutors in Germany issued arrest warrants for 13 alleged CIA operatives in connection with allegations that a German citizen was abducted and then detained in a secret Afghan prison.

Last month the European parliament accused some European governments of turning a blind eye to the illegal transportation of alleged terrorists through their countries to face possible torture. The Strasbourg chamber said that the UK, Germany, Poland and some other member states allowed CIA flights to stop over without proper controls.

Mr Bellinger branded that study “unbalanced, inaccurate and unfair”, and cautioned that European probes into US officials could be damaging. “I do think that these continuing investigations can harm intelligence co-operation,” he said.

Mr Bellinger did not address details of the Italian case. Romano Prodi, Italy’s prime minister, is unwilling to agree to prosecutors’ demands to seek extradition of the Americans.

Additional reporting by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Italy should have pretended to be from Mexico ...and Condie would have handed them right over.....

That's funny Redbadger!

No, but they won't have a problem handing over Dog Chapman, to the Mexican gov.will they, but then, I guess they figure what Dog, did to wrong the Mexican gov, went a little far, after all, he made all that trouble just to bring to justice a Serial Rapist, who may have raped hundreds of women, and golly gee, how can that possibly compare to nabbing terrorist?

Bounty hunters don't hold state secrets our government doesn't want revealed.

Originally Posted by CrocketsGhost

Bounty hunters don't hold state secrets our government doesn't want revealed.

Heck Crocket, do you think we still have any secrets left, with friends like the New York times out there?