Italian Rendition Trial Convicts Air Force Colonel
Here is an interesting story from the WaPo about a conviction obtained in absentia today against 22 CIA officers (including the Milan station chief) and one Air Force Colonel (LtCol Joseph Romano) for the rendition of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr. According to the WaPo the Italians alleged that the CIA:
[S]natched Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a radical Egyptian imam also known as Abu Omar, from a Milan intersection in broad daylight. They said he was flown to Cairo, where he was subject to electroshocks and physical abuse at the behest of the CIA.
NY Times story has a little more info here.
The strange part about this is the Air Force Colonel’s involvement. If you are on the operations side of the CIA you know that part of your job is the potential to end up in a foreign jail cell. But, an Air Force colonel likely doesn’t have the same expectation. If the allegations are true that an Air Force colonel was involved in a rendition, I’d have to wonder why. But, if it was just a colonel from Aviano AB that somehow was involved in flying Nasr out of the c0untry, well that might reduce my opinion of the credibility of this prosecution. Since I don’t know all the facts, I won’t judge.
Romano was commander of the 31st Security Forces Squadron at Aviano Air Base, Italy, when the cleric, known as Abu Omar, was detained by CIA and Italian agents in Milan on Feb. 17, 2003, according to a court filing related to the case. Omar was taken to Aviano and eventually to Egypt, where he was transferred to Egyptian authorities — under a practice called extraordinary rendition — and held for four years. He claims he was tortured and otherwise mistreated in Egypt, according to court papers.
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Source:
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/06/airforce_rendition_romano_060509/
Thanks, Dew. Appears you had about as much luck as I did figuring out the Colonel’s alleged role in the rendition.
No Man: My guess was that he got “tagged” because they confined him at Aviano for a short time until the rendition was executed, and as SF Commander, he was the one responsible for the “conditions of confinement.” But, according to Wiki….
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At the time of the Hassn Nasr kidnapping, Romano was commander of the 31st Security Forces Squadron stationed Aviano Air Base near Venice. On June 27 2005, he was made subject of a Europe-wide arrest warrant,[3][4] centering on contentions of Italian authorities that he was in charge of security operations during the kidnapping of Nasr in February, 2003. The subsequent formal transmission of the arrest warrants to the Eurojust judicial coordination office meant that they became immediately effective throughout all E.U. member countries, and that Romano and all 22 other U.S. nationals named in the warrant were subject to immediate arrest within their respective jurisdictions. Among the evidentiary points cited in the warrant, issued by the Tribunale di Milano, were the fact that one of the four subscribed numbers traced by authorities as having transmitted from the scene of the kidnapping to Aviano was “assigned to, owned and used by” Col. Romano.[5]
A formal indictment was issued by Judge Caterina Interlandi on February 16, 2007.[6] Romano – the only military officer among the 26 U.S. nationals indicted – has refused to comment on the allegations. “I have nothing to say,” he has said, referring questions about the “alleged incident that I’m supposedly involved in” to Air Force senior leadership and the service’s public affairs office.[7]
SOURCE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_L._Romano
If that’s true – and obviously I have no way of knowing – he was at the “scene” as well.
http://court-martial-ucmj.com/news-of-the-weird-strange/more-on-the-italian-prosecution-on-a-usaf-colonel/
Dew-thanks again. I will have to pull up the link to the indictment. If it is true I’d have to say that an Air Force Colonel on the scene of a rendition in a NATO country is. . . not good? If true I guess Colonel R. won’t be travelling to Europe the rest of his life(?) Not sure how that one works.
If I recall, Romano was an O-4 when he was 31 SFS/CC. A very professional officer.
I know the RLSO in Naples has been tracking this case all along as part of its foreign criminal jurisdiction responsibility. One interesting twist to me involving the colonel is how the NATO SOFA played out. Under the SOFA, the sending state (in this case the United States) has exclusive jurisdiction over offenses that occur in the performance of official duties. The U.S. assertion of jurisdiction over the colonel should have been a no-brainer. I wonder if this is a sign of continued negative fall-out from Ashby. It is also an interesting comment on the enforcability of treaty obligations. The treaty might say the United States has exclusive jurisdiction, but Italy has to be willing to honor its obligations. The Italian court system has a robust appellate process and I suspect that he has a shot at winning on appeal on the jurisdiction issue.
It would be nice if Stars and Stripes or AF Times would follow up with what happened to the foreign criminal jurisdiction request that was filed by the U.S. about a month ago. Did the Italian government reject it out of hand? Did the court just blow right by it? What happens the next time the CIA, FBI seek military assistance in Italy?
From the Stars and Stripes article from about a month ago: “…Court documents allege that all actions taken by Colonel Romano … were taken in his capacity as a member of the U.S. Air Force,” the letter reads. In accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement, “the primary right to exercise jurisdiction rests with the United States,”
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=65019
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