Italy keeps possible CIA kidnap documents secret

ROME, Aug 6 (Reuters) Italy's government has acknowledged that there are secret documents it cannot declassify related to the alleged CIA kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in Milan, a senior official in parliament said today.

The head of Italy's Sismi military intelligence agency, Nicolo Pollari, has refused to cooperate fully with magistrates investigating a possible Italian role in the incident, saying he was restricted by ''state secrets'', his lawyer told Reuters.

At the same time, Pollari has denied any wrongdoing.

The head of parliament's intelligence oversight committee, Claudio Scajola, said after a four-hour hearing with Pollari today the new centre-left government had declined to declassify documentation related to the case.

He did not offer specifics. Italian media have reported materials were classified under the previous centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi, in power in 2003 when radical Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr was allegedly abducted.

''I asked the prime minister for clarification on this issue and I received an answer that the conditions do not exist to declassify this documentation,'' Scajola told reporters.

Pollari again broadly defended Sismi before the committee on Sunday, saying it would never take part in ''operations similar'' to Nasr's alleged abduction.

Prosecutors believe a CIA-led team grabbed Nasr off a Milan street, bundled him into a van and flew him to Egypt.

Nasr says he was tortured there under questioning and 26 Americans, most believed to be CIA agents, face arrest warrants over the case.

Two members of Pollari's Sismi were briefly arrested last month and Pollari is also under investigation.

''The director of Sismi said he ruled out participation in similar operations by (agents), to have always given very clear orders that no actions be taken that violated the law,'' said Scajola, a member of Berlusconi's Forza Italia political party.

Pollari will go before the committee again on September. 19. The committee also intends to hear from the prosecutor leading the investigation.

Berlusconi has denied that he or Sismi knew about a plot to kidnap Nasr.

One senior Sismi official under investigation, Marco Mancini, has said via his lawyer that the CIA asked Italy to help kidnap Nasr, but it refused because it would be illegal.

The Egyptian cleric, now held in a prison outside Cairo, faces an Italian arrest warrant for suspicion of terrorist activity including recruiting militants for Iraq.

REUTERS DH RK0145