While Bush talks with the Pope and Prodi, Italy tries CIA "fugitives" for extraordinary rendition

..

President Bush, deeply unpopular here and met by boisterous protests, sought to impress Pope Benedict XVI and the Italian public on Saturday with his humanitarian record and downplayed differences with the Vatican over Iraq.

his HUMANITARIAN record...? george's hypocrisy knows no bounds... i also doubt very much if RAT-zinger brought up the subject...

As President Bush headed for Italy on Friday, a Milan court opened the trial of a group of CIA agents accused of kidnapping a radical Egyptian cleric — the first legal prosecution of one of the administration's most controversial counter-terrorism tactics.

Twenty-six American defendants, including two CIA station chiefs and an Air Force colonel, are being tried in absentia in the 2003 abduction from a Milan sidewalk of the cleric known as Abu Omar.

[...]

Judge Oscar Magi opened the trial, reading the indictment and ticking off the Americans' names, repeating 26 times: "Fugitive."

"Fugitive."

"Fugitive."

[...]

Only in Italy, however, has [an extraordinary rendition] case gone to trial, a public forum that threatens to further illuminate the actions of CIA operatives and the long-denied complicity of their European counterparts.

"We want to punish terrorists — but in the courtroom," Milan's lead prosecutor, Armando Spataro, said in commenting on the significance of the landmark trial. The war on terrorism, he said, should be waged "within the full respect of the laws of our Western democracies."

In an uncomfortable coincidence for American officials that highlighted the ongoing strain in U.S.-Italian relations, the trial started just hours before Bush arrived in Italy for a day-and-a-half visit following the Group of 8 summit in Germany.

in the ap story quoted at the top of this post, it was not until the last two paragraphs, paragraphs 36 and 37 that this was mentioned...

Along with the 26 Americans on trial for the abduction of an Egyptian cleric, a U.S. soldier is on trial in Rome for the March 2005 slaying of an Italian spy in Baghdad. In both cases, the U.S. citizens are being tried in absentia.

[Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi] said he and Bush did not discuss the trials.

heaven forbid anyone would try to burst george's bubble...

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