Italian officer admits to role in CIA abduction of Muslim
London – An Italian police officer whose job was to coordinate with the CIA has admitted to Italian prosecutors that he was directly involved in the CIA kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, a radical Muslim preacher who was snatched off a Milan street three years ago.
The admission by the officer, a member of an elite Carabinieri unit, is a significant development in the case – a firsthand account by a participant in the abduction that implies the Italian government had some knowledge of the CIA operation.
“We now have evidence of one Carabinieri from the anti-terrorism unit in Milan,” said a source close to the Milan prosecutor’s office. “We are investigating if he had other accomplices.”
The CIA has refused to discuss the Milan “rendition,” the agency’s term for the practice of forcibly transporting terrorism suspects to third countries for interrogation, or even to acknowledge its role in the operation, despite hundreds of pages of evidence compiled by Italian investigators that leave little doubt about CIA involvement.
Armando Spataro, Milan’s chief anti-terrorism prosecutor, has issued warrants for the arrest of 22 CIA operatives, including Robert Seldon Lady, the agency’s station chief in Milan.
What is publicly known of the case thus far is based largely on an electronic and paper trail of cellphone calls, hotel bills and credit card records that trace the rendition of Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, from a sidewalk in Milan to U.S. military bases in Italy and Germany and on to Egypt, where he says he was tortured and where he remains imprisoned.
RALEIGH, N.C.
Execution delayed for new DNA test
An inmate scheduled for execution this week won a reprieve Wednesday when the state Supreme Court ruled he deserved a new DNA test that could back up his claim of innocence.
Jerry Wayne Conner, 40, was scheduled to die by injection Friday. He was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings in 1990 of store clerk Minh Rogers and her 16-year-old daughter, Linda, who also was raped.
Prosecutor Frank Parrish said he was skeptical about the need for more testing but planned to comply with the judge’s order.
Defense lawyers argued for a new DNA test, saying current procedures are better than those available at the time of trial.
The defense also has pointed to another man seen near the store the night of the slayings as a possible suspect.
TOLEDO, Ohio
Coin dealer asks to change not-guilty plea
A major GOP fundraiser charged in a scandal over a state rare-coin investment asked to change his not-guilty pleas Wednesday on separate federal charges that he illegally funneled donations to President Bush’s re-election campaign.
Coin dealer Tom Noe’s attorney and the U.S. Attorney’s Office jointly filed a request Wednesday asking a federal judge to set a change-of-plea hearing as soon as possible. The filing did not indicate what the new plea will be.
Noe had denied illegally funneling $45,400 in contributions to President Bush’s re-election bid. He is accused of skirting the $2,000 limit on individual contributions by giving money directly or indirectly to 24 friends and associates, who then made the campaign contributions in their own names.
ROME
Ex-communist elected president of Italy
Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday became the first former communist to ascend to Italy’s presidency, crowning a political life spanning a half-century and marked by moderation.
Napolitano was elected president by Italy’s Parliament in a vote that cleared the way for center-left leader Romano Prodi to take power after a month-long limbo that followed bitterly disputed national elections.
Napolitano was supported by the center-left coalition, and one of his first acts as head of state will be to give Prodi the mandate to form a government.
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria
Motorcycle gunman kills U.S. oil worker
A gunman riding a motorcycle shot to death an American oil worker Wednesday in a southern Nigeria city, police said.
Police Commissioner Samuel Adetuyi said the American worked for the U.S. drilling-equipment maker Baker Hughes Inc. and was riding in a car to his Port Harcourt office when he was shot.
Baker Hughes spokesman Gene Shiels confirmed that the victim worked for the Houston-based company but would not identify him until his family was notified.
A new militant movement whose attacks on oil installations have cut more than 20 percent of Nigeria’s 2.5 million barrel daily production said Tuesday it would target oil workers with fresh attacks.
LONDON
British official assails Guantanamo camp
The U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is a discredit to the American tradition of freedom and should close, Britain’s attorney general said Wednesday, the strongest condemnation of the prison by a British government official.
“The existence of Guantanamo Bay remains unacceptable,” Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith’s criticism was far stronger than that of Prime Minister Tony Blair whenever he is asked about Guantanamo, where about 500 terrorism suspects have been detained without charge or trial for as long as four years.
