Rome – The government on Monday replaced the head of Italy’s military intelligence agency, who was under investigation for the alleged CIA abduction of an Egyptian cleric and links to a fake dossier that purported to show Iraq tried to buy uranium ahead of the U.S.-led invasion.
In a major sweep, Nicolo Pollari was replaced as the head of the military intelligence agency SISMI, and the chiefs of the civilian secret-service agencies also were removed. The government insisted the changes were part of a broader overhaul.
“After a few years, these positions of delicate responsibility must find their natural rotation,” Premier Romano Prodi told the Apcom news agency.
After he leaves SISMI, Pollari will receive “an important special assignment” reporting directly to Prodi, the premier’s office said. The change takes effect Dec. 16.
Pollari had long resisted calls for his resignation.
In 2005, news reports in the leftist daily La Repubblica alleged he knowingly passed forged documents to the United States suggesting Saddam Hussein had been seeking uranium in Africa, which bolstered the case for the invasion of Iraq.
Pollari denied the allegations.
Calls for his resignation intensified after he became the highest-ranking Italian official named in the investigation into a Muslim cleric’s kidnapping.
Prosecutors in Milan recently renewed their request for Italy to ask Washington to extradite 26 Americans – all but one believed to be CIA agents – in the alleged 2003 abduction of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar.
The cleric was reportedly flown out of northern Italy from a military base in Aviano and, according to the prosecutors, eventually taken to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
