Italy arrested two of its own intelligence agents on Wednesday for their alleged roles in helping the CIA abduct an Egyptian Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003.
Investigators also issued arrest warrants for four US citizens, including three CIA agents and an employee of the US air base at Aviano in northern Italy, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
Prosecutors in Milan say that Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a terror suspect also known as Abu Omar, was grabbed off the streets on February 17, 2003, by a team of CIA operatives who flew him to two US military bases and then on to Egypt where he claims that he was tortured by Egyptian security agents.
At the time, Nasr, 43, was already being investigated by the Italian intelligence service, SISMI, for international terror links.
Last November prosecutors requested that the United States extradite 22 CIA agents accused of abducting Nasr, but then-justice minister Roberto Castelli refused to file the requests with the US Justice Department.
Nasr remains jailed in Egypt.
Italy arrests two agents in CIA kidnap case
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