U.S. Won't Send CIA Defendants To Italy

Abduction Probes Hurt Anti-Terrorism Efforts, State Dept. Official Says

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post

BERLIN, Feb. 28 -- The State Department's top lawyer said Wednesday that the United States would refuse to extradite CIA officers who face kidnapping charges in Italy, warning that European criminal prosecutions of U.S. agents were harming transatlantic counterterrorism efforts.

An Italian court issued indictments against 25 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force officer Feb. 16, charging them with kidnapping a radical Muslim cleric in Milan four years ago. Although the Italian government has not made a final decision on whether to ask the United States to extradite the defendants, John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said the request would be rejected regardless.

"If we got an extradition request from Italy, we would not extradite U.S. officials to Italy," Bellinger told reporters in Brussels, where he was meeting with European Union officials.

Bellinger's statement was the first time that a U.S. government official has directly addressed the Italian criminal investigation, which is expected to produce the first overseas trial of CIA officers involved in a covert counterterrorism operation.

The trial is scheduled to open June 8 in Milan. Italian prosecutors say they will try the American defendants in absentia, if necessary. Five Italian spies, including the former head of military intelligence, have also been charged.

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