The Global Spiderweb

“If this nation is to remain true to the ideals symbolized by the flag, [we] must not wield the tools of tyrants even to resist an assault by the forces of tyranny.“

-Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2004

Three years ago, a CIA kidnapping ring was in Italy to snatch a radical imam, Hussan Mustafa Nasr, from a street in Milan. Flown on a CIA plane to his native Egypt, Nasr was held in a dungeon where he was given electric shock treatments, hung upside down, and tortured in various positions. Released and then rearrested, Nasr disappeared in the bowels of the Egyptian prison system.

While in Milan setting up the kidnapping, the CIA crew made many calls from their top-of-the-line hotel rooms, but these were not, as the spying trade puts it, on “secure phones.” So, Italian intelligence agents had no difficulty tracking them—leading to arrest warrants for these CIA spooks for violating the sovereignty of Italy and its laws.

I was sure that our Justice Department would never extradite the members of this gang because the president and his team continuously assure the world that we never ever send suspects to countries where they’d be tortured. But I have kept wondering whether, in Italy, the case of the CIA criminals has been closed.

However, this month, at a conference in Florence convened by NYU law school’s increasingly influential Center on Law and Security, Italy’s renowned investigating judge, Armando Spataro…

Posted by atrain
Ari Paul has written for The American Prospect, In These Times, Tikkun, Z, Punk Planet, openDemocracy.net, Reason and other newspapers and magazines. He is also a reporter for The Chief-Leader, a New York weekly covering labor in the city.