maher arar has company

An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 officers and operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency on charges that they seized an Egyptian cleric on a Milan street two years ago and flew him to Egypt for questioning, Italian prosecutors and investigators said Friday.

The judge, Chiara Nobili of Milan, signed the arrest warrants on Wednesday for 13 C.I.A. operatives who are suspected of seizing an imam named Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, as he walked to his mosque here for noon prayers on Feb. 17, 2003.

It is unclear what prompted the issuance of the warrants, but Judge Guido Salvini said in May that it was "certain" that Mr. Nasr had been seized by "people belonging to foreign intelligence networks interested in interrogating him and neutralizing him, to then hand him over to Egyptian authorities."

Mr. Nasr, who was under investigation before his disappearance for possible links to Al Qaeda, is still missing, and his family and friends say he was tortured repeatedly by Egyptian jailers.
New York Times story here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

not so fast

Not everyone thinks the Conservative government is a lock. Canada's opposition Conservative Party, which is set to bring down the minority Liberal government later this week, was hit by a new opinion poll on Monday that showed it was trailing in the country's most vote-rich region. The Leger Marketing poll for the Sun chain of newspapers put support for the Liberals in the powerful central province of Ontario at 43 percent compared with 31 percent for the Conservatives. Ontario, a Liberal stronghold at the federal level for the past 12 years, accounts for 106 of the 308 seats in House of Commons, and no party can hope to form a government without doing well there. . . . Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals have been badly hurt by a corruption scandal and Conservative leader Stephen Harper says the government must be defeated as soon as possible. The Leger figures, however, suggest there is no guarantee Harper can end 12 years of Liberal rule. Thanks, ALPF! I must say, I...
Read more

the great -our debate

This spelling thing everyone keeps warning me about is more complicated than I thought! This page runs through the terms of the debate. Check it out - it's informative and amusing. Thanks to ALPF, of course.
Read more

the nutshell

I just received two emails at the movetocanada address. Kyle Couch says: What are you waiting for? Get the hell out of this GREAT country. We don't need or want your cowardly attitude here. And from a Canadian: Welcome to the true melting pot. Unlock your front door, grab a cold Canadian, exchange the uh for an eh & never forget what it means to be Canadian, & that's ... & that's...... Well, the answer won't come from some loud-mouth Rocker From Toronto, Living In Montreal with his beautiful, intelligent, American wife. She moved up here under the first King George. No, it will come from fine people like you. In fact, all of the immigrants sharing their culture with the natives, making them a little more intelligent & hopefully much more tolerant. Yes sir America's loss is once again Canada's gain baby. That's it in a nutshell. Do you think Kyle Couch's grandparents, or great-grandparents, or great-great-grandparents, or however many g...
Read more