2 Italian officers arrested in reported CIA kidnapping

Some critics said that it was a 'breach of sovereignty.'
ROME (AP) -- Prosecutors said Wednesday they had arrested two Italian intelligence officers as part of their investigation into the reported CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan, providing the first official sign that Italian agents were involved.
They also announced they were seeking the arrest of four more Americans after earlier demanding the extradition of 22 purported CIA agents.
The arrests of the two SISMI intelligence officials fueled allegations by a European investigator that Italy and 13 other European countries had aided the United States with the secret transfer of terror suspects to detention centers around the world.
About the cleric
Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, an Egyptian cleric and terrorist suspect also known as Abu Omar, was reportedly kidnapped from a Milan street Feb. 17, 2003. Prosecutors say the operation represented a severe breach of Italian sovereignty that compromised their anti-terrorism efforts, and have already incriminated 22 purported CIA agents.
Prosecutors say Nasr was taken by the CIA to the joint U.S.-Italian Aviano air base, flown to Germany and then to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
The operation is believed part of a possible CIA program in which terrorism suspects are transferred to third countries where some supposedly are subjected to torture. The CIA describes such operations as "extraordinary renditions."
Prosecutors and a lawyer for Nasr say he is being held in a Cairo prison.
Italy's new, center-left government released a statement late Wednesday saying that its intelligence services had denied any part in the reported kidnapping. It vowed to cooperate with the investigation.
Being sought
Prosecutors in Milan said three of the latest Americans being sought were CIA agents, while the fourth worked at Aviano. Their statement did not provide names of those targeted.
It said the two Italians, at the time of the kidnapping, were the director of SISMI's first division -- dealing with international terrorism -- and the head of the agency's operations in northern Italy.
Italian reports identified the two as Marco Mancini, now the head of military counterespionage, and Gustavo Pignero, and said they were charged with kidnapping with the aggravating circumstance of abuse of power.
Communist politician Marco Rizzo called the case "shocking," and blamed the conservative government of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi -- a firm U.S. ally -- for allowing foreign secret agents free rein on Italian soil.
"The ceding of sovereignty at the expense of our country is disturbing," Rizzo was quoted as saying by the Apcom news agency, "as is the manifest violation of international law."
"The arrest ... confirms the collusion of EU member states in CIA abuses on European territory," said a statement by two Green members of the European Parliament, Cem Ozdemir and Raul Romeva. "Today's arrest leaves this complicity beyond doubt."
Some politicians in Italy, however, criticized prosecutors for hurting the fight against terrorism.
"Osama bin Laden is happy. In my country today, instead of arresting terrorists we're arresting those who are hunting terrorists," said Jas Gawronski, an Italian member of the European Parliament and member of a committee investigating questionable CIA activities. He also is a former Berlusconi spokesman.
European investigator Dick Marty, a Swiss senator, reported to Europe's top human rights body in June that 14 European countries, including Italy, had aided the movement of detainees who said they had been abducted by U.S. agents and secretly transferred to detention centers around the world.
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