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Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was seized from a street in Milan by the CIA with the assistance of Italian military intelligence officers, a judge found.

He was then smuggled out of the country under the covert "extraordinary rendition" programme. He was transferred to US bases in Italy and Germany and then moved to Egypt, where he claims to have been tortured. He was released after four years in prison without being charged.

I was tortured in cell after kidnap by CIA, says Muslim cleric The Americans, all but one identified as CIA agents by prosecutors, were tried in absentia as subsequent Italian governments refused or ignored prosecutors' extradition requests. They were immediately sentenced to five years in prison at the end of the three-year trial.

The trial was the first by any government to scrutinise the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, which human rights advocates say was the agency's way to outsource the torture of prisoners to countries where it is practised. A US State Department spokesman said: "We are disappointed by the verdicts against the Americans and Italians charged in Milan."

The Milan station chief at the time, Robert Seldon Lady, received an eight-year sentence. Three other Americans were acquitted due to diplomatic immunity and five Italians due to lack of evidence after the Italian government cited state security, the judge said.

During the trial, the CIA refuse... >>>