CIA kidnapping trial resumes in Italy

AFP, March, 2008

ROME (AFP) — A Milan court on Wednesday resumed the "CIA-gate" trial of 26 US citizens accused in the February 2003 CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian imam in the northern city, a court-appointed lawyer said.

Judge Oscar Magi had suspended the trial last June to allow the Constitutional Court to deliberate over whether Milan investigators had violated state secrecy laws by wiretapping military intelligence agents.

Since the government and Milan prosecutors agreed in January to try to settle the issue without recourse to Italy's highest court, Magi decided Wednesday the abduction trial could resume, lawyer Alessia Sorgato told AFP.

The two sides will hold talks on July 8 and could agree on documents to be removed from the body of evidence in the case dubbed "CIA-gate" by the Italian press, Sorgato said.

Osama Mustafa Hassan, an imam better known as Abu Omar, was snatched from a ...