Egyptian cleric to sue Italy over CIA abduction

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL13909153

By Alaa Shahine

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, May 13 (Reuters) - An Egyptian cleric said on Tuesday he would sue the Italian state for allowing the CIA to kidnap him in Milan in 2003 and fly him to Egypt where he was imprisoned and tortured.

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr said his lawyers would file the suit on Wednesday, the day a criminal trial resumes in Milan of seven Italian spies and 26 Americans accused of taking part in the transfer, or "rendition".

Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, said in an interview at his apartment in the coastal city of Alexandria that he wanted 20 million euros ($31 million) in compensation. However, he said he was prepared to accept an out-of-court settlement.

"I am ready and open for a ... solution," he said, sitting in a room with walls decorated with verses from the Koran and a poster of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

"But the compensation will still have to be generous because of the injuries I sustained -- the kidnapping, the oppression, the torture and the violation of the privacy of my home."

The judge in the criminal trial is expected to decide on Wednesday whether to call Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as a witness, which could make him the first Italian premier to testify in a criminal case over secret CIA transfers of terrorism suspects.