Italy convicts former CIA agents in rendition trial

By Manuela D'Alessandro and Daniel Flynn

MILAN/ROME (Reuters) - An Italian judge sentenced 23 Americans to up to eight years in prison on Wednesday for the abduction of a Muslim cleric, in a symbolic condemnation of the CIA "rendition" flights used by the former U.S. government.

The Americans were all tried in absentia because the United States refused to extradite them.

The U.S. State Department expressed its disappointment with the verdict, the first of its kind, but campaigners who have long complained that the renditions policy violated basic human rights said the ruling set an important precedent.

"This decision sends a clear message to all governments that even in the fight against terrorism you can't forsake the basic rights of our democracies," said prosecutor Armando Spataro.

Judge Oscar Magi handed down the convictions for the abduction of Egyptian-born cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, snatched off a Milan street in 2003 and flown to Egypt for interrogation.

The heaviest sentence -- eight years in prison -- was handed down to the former head of the CIA's Milan station, Robert Seldon Lady, while 21 other former agents got five years each.

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Romano was also sentenced to five years, despite a request from the Pentagon that the case should be tried by U.S. courts.

Magi dropped the case against three Americans, including a former CIA Rome station chief, because of diplomatic immunity.