Strong Evidence against Italian Imam

Nearly a week ago, an Italian judge ordered the arrest of 13 American intelligence agents for "kidnapping" an Imam as part of an "extraordinary rendition" operation to send him to Egypt.

Today, Newsweek reports that there was good evidence that the imam was involved in terrorism and that at least part of the Italian government had given the CIA the go-ahead to perform the snatch-and-grab.

A radical imam allegedly abducted by CIA agents in Italy shortly before the U.S. invasion of Iraq was identified as a key figure in a jihadi network supplying foreign fighters for Ansar Al-Islam -- a terror group that the Bush administration was then seeking to link to Saddam HusseinÂ’s government, according to Italian court records.

...

[C]ourt records in the case show that the Italian police had assembled a large mass of evidence tying Abu Omar to Ansar Al-Islam, the Al Qaeda-linked group based in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Administration officials say Ansar was being protected by Saddam and run by lieutenants of the notorious terrorist Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.

The article goes on to mention that the agents used easily-traceable cell phones, indicating that they were probably working with at least some element of the Italian government.

I recall reading in the Houston Chronicle last Saturday that it is not unusual for the Italian judiciary to act extremely independently of other parts of the government.

-- CAV