EUROPE WANTS TO PUT 36 CIA SPIES IN THE DOCK

Germany has become the latest European country determined to charge CIA officers with kidnapping a European citizen, Khaled al-Mari, and flying him abroad to be interrogated under extreme conditions.
The move by prosecutors in Munich began with the issuing of arrest warrants for thirteen CIA agents, listed in indictments only by their code names. The German decision may soon be followed by a court in Milan, Italy, that is considering indicting 23 CIA personnel and three Italians with the abduction of a Muslim cleric known as Abu Omar in 2003. He was snatched off the streets of Milan, as part of what is now known worldwide as the CIA’s rendition policy, and secretly flown to Egypt where the Italians say he was tortured.
While the CIA and the US government will dismiss warrants issued in Europe, and refuse to extradite CIA staff, problems could be waiting round the corner for CIA operatives caught up in any of these proceedings, especially if their true identities and not just codenames become known. They could be placed on international criminal watch lists, and on files at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Should they be spotted in years to come, passing through the airports of countries that are signatories to The Hague Court, or countries that have extradition treaties with Italy or Germany, they could be seized and handed over to the Italian and German authorities, or the court in The Hague.
Some media reports have suggested German prosecutors do not yet know the true identities of the 13 CIA operatives. Those reports may be deliberately bogus to trap the agents, by lulling them into a false sense of security. Part of the scandal surrounding the German case is that the country’s intelligence service colluded in the abduction of Khaled al-Masri while he was traveling through Macedonia on December 31, 2003. He was stripped naked, drugged, shackled in a private CIA plane and flown first to Baghdad. From there he was transferred to a clandestine CIA prison called “the salt pit” outside the Afghan capital, Kabul. A-Masri says he was tortured. When the CIA finally learned he was an innocent man, they released him. German intelligence chief have been forced to hand over information on the role played by German agents in al-Masri’s kidnapping and files on the 13 CIA staff at the center of it.
In contrast to the German case, Milan prosecutors know a lot more about the 23 CIA operatives who abducted the cleric, Abu Omar. They not only have photos of some of them but they have learned a great more about them from the Italian Intelligence agency, SISMI, which was deeply involved in the seizure and rendition of Omar. He has not been seen since he was plucked off the streets of Milan in 2003. All that is known about his whereabouts is that he was flown to Cairo by the CIA and handed over to Egyptian interrogators.
His disappearance has rocked Italian politics and led to another recent scandal, namely the discovery that the editor of the Italian daily paper, Libero, Renato Farina, and one of his reporters, were SISMI spies. One of their major tasks was to find out what Milan prosecutors knew about the Omar rendition. Prosecutors became suspicions of questions Farina was asking them and ordered his arrest. They also sent police to raid his apartment. In it, they found thousands of files he kept on judges, journalists, prosecutors and businessmen the SISMI was targeting. Under police questioning, he admitted receiving approx $45,000 over two years for spying on colleagues and others. He told police he left the money in a church to benefit the poor but police decided that was a fanciful story. It is thought he will plead guilty rather than face a trial. Some observers in Italy have claimed that Farina’s targeting of prosecutors investigating the CIA was not just for the benefit of SISMI chiefs but also the CIA.
The rendition inquiries in Europe led last year to European parliamentarians calling on EU governments to come clean about renditions and also the presence of secret CIA prisons. Another outcome of the controversy swirling around the CIA was the Council of Europe inquiry headed by the Swiss senator, Dick Marty. Much to the dismay of the US State Department and the CIA, his investigations have resulted in the rendition issue being linked with a widespread clamor for the ending of CIA secret prisons in Europe and around the globe.
The Marty probe concluded that the CIA had several private jets that were re-fueled at stop-over airports in European countries, included the Rep. of Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Britain. There were also what he called, “staging Posts,” in Cyprus, Turkey, Spain and Germany. These were centers where CIA jets remained for some time and planning took place to move abducted suspects, and others arrested in conflict zones, to interrogation centers in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as well as to “secret” CIA prisons across the globe.
Marty used prisoner interviews, in conjunction with air traffic and satellite data to construct a picture of CIA operations across Europe. The media’s attention was, however, caught by growing evidence that the CIA ran what it called “black sites “- secret prisons. The White House at first denied the existence of such sites, but, eventually said several secret prisons being run abroad were closed down. Three countries suspected of hosting “black sites” were Poland, Rumania and Bulgaria. The overall impact of the CIA’s renditions program and its use of “black sites” have resulted in major damage to the US image throughout European capitals and among European citizens. The prospect that as many 36 warrants will now be issued for CIA operatives will only serve to bring further scrutiny of the CIA’s renditions policy and will shed an embarrassing light on the level of collusion between some European intelligence services and the CIA in the abduction of European citizens.