Italy unlikely to press for extradition in CIA kidnapping case (Jurist)

[struggle4progress]

Brett Murphy at 1:29 PM ET

(JURIST) Italian Justice Minister Clemente Mastella told Rome's Il Messaggero daily on Monday that it is unlikely that Italy will seek extradition of 26 Americans who were indicted last week for their alleged role in the February 2003 abduction and extraordinary rendition of alleged terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr in Milan. According to Mastella, Italy remains concerned about preserving its relationship with the US. The Italian Parliament is expected to make a final decision on whether to request extradition on Thursday.

In October, Italian prosecutors completed their investigation and sought the extradition of the 26 American defendants. Previous attempts by prosecutors to request extradition have been stonewalled by the Italian government, but observers thought the new center-left government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi elected last April might come to a different conclusion than the conservative and highly pro-American administration of former PM Silvio Berlusconi. Milan prosecutor Armando Spataro warned early last year that he would be forced to try the American defendants in absentia if extradition were denied. US and Italian intelligence agents have pressed for a political resolution of the case.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/02/italy-unlikely-to-press-for-extradition.php

More links @ link

[Kagemusha]

1. No one should be surprised.

Right or wrong, this is what people had to expect from day 1. They've made their case but have no rational, reasonable way of bringing the case to trial.

[PhilipShore]

2. No surprise with me...

I am not a lawyer... but I don't know why -- I think they were American lawyers even raised it in court. If they are liberal lawyers -- they give liberalism a bad name -- by making liberal lawyers look like ambulance chasers to get their 5 minutes of fame.

Kunstler and the ACLU (lawyers for the ACLU when they first started out as liberal lawyers) won on most of the cases that they brought to court.

The person that started the ACLU was a liberal pacifist, not a ambulance chaser.

Roger Nash Baldwin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Nash_Baldwin

In St. Louis, Baldwin became greatly influenced by the radical social movement of the anarchist Emma Goldman. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World and developed a sympathy for the Soviet Union and for Communism that lasted until 1939 when he was disillusioned by the Nazi-Soviet Pact and broke off all radical ties. In 1927, he had visited the Soviet Union and wrote a book, Liberty Under the Soviets, which contained extensive praise for the Soviet Union. However, he later denounced communism in his book, A New Slavery, which condemned "the inhuman communist police state tyranny" <1>. In the 1940s, Baldwin led the campaign to purge the ACLU of Communist Party members <2>.


Roger Nash Baldwin (January 21, 1884 – August 26, 1981) was a noted civil libertarian, pacifist, and social activist who held Communist views in his youth. He was one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and its executive director until 1950; many of the ACLU's original landmark cases took place under his direction.

[struggle4progress]

3. Whatever does your post have to do with a kidnapping case in the Italian courts?

[PhilipShore]

4. ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, Khaled el-Masri is trying to sue the CIA

Have a Nice Flight
Boeing helps CIA fly kidnapped suspects abroad for torture
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0706,hentoff,75712,2.html

February 4th, 2007 7:44 PM

On the Boeing 737 Business Jet, Khaled el-Masri said, "all the people were in black clothes and black masks. They put earplugs in my ears and a sack over my head." After putting chains on his legs, they led him onto the plane. "They threw me on the floor and injected me with something. I blacked out."

Last month, a judge in Milan, Italy, began a hearing on kidnapping charges against 26 Americans, most of them CIA agents, that could lead to the first trial anywhere on the CIA's "extraordinary renditions." Scores of flights to torture chambers have been documented—along with flight logs from European and American official aviation sources—by human rights organizations and in Stephen Grey's extensively sourced book Ghost Plane.

With ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, Khaled el-Masri is trying to sue the CIA—and Boeing may, in time, be included as a defendant. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis III would not even start a trial because the government invoked the "state secrets" privilege. But as Wizner said (The New York Times, November 29), the trial would only confirm "what the entire world entirely knows" from reports in the world press. (The case is on appeal.)

El-Masri asks appeals court to reinstate CIA extraordinary rendition case

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/11/el-masri-asks-appeals-court-to.php

Lawyers for German national Khalid el-Masri argued Wednesday before the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that his civil case against the CIA for his alleged 2003 extraordinary rendition from Macedonia and his subsequent detention in Afghanistan should be reinstated . A federal judge in May dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that it would reveal state secrets. El-Masri's ACLU attorneys argued that details of el-Masri's allegations and of a subsequent CIA investigation are already public knowledge, and that without a trial, the CIA will escape punishment for clearly illegal conduct. El-Masri claims the CIA held him at a secret Afghanistan prison for five months, subjecting him to inhumane conditions and coercive interrogation, and eventually released him in Albania in 2004 without charge.

In October, el-Masri testified before a Spanish judge as part of a Spanish investigation into whether the CIA used Spanish airports to transport el-Masri to countries where they could legally torture him. In June, a German investigator concluded that no evidence had surfaced to disprove el-Masri's story . The New York Times has more.

CIA sued over extraordinary rendition practices, wrongful imprisonment

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/12/cia-sued-over-extraordinary-rendition.php

[PhilipShore]

6. I am not a lawyer...

but if I was one and worked for the ACLU, I would be representing Valerie Plame in her Civil suit against the CIA.

She has a much stronger case against the CIA, and I would use the Italy case -- as examples to force the CIA to talk about the facts of it breaking International rules of law.

Then that would open the door to sue the CIA about the Italy matter.

[PhilipShore]

5. Self Delete Dupe