Italian, US agents urge govts to stop CIA trial

MILAN, Jan 9 (Reuters) US and Italian spies urged their governments today to prevent them going on trial over the 2003 kidnapping of a terrorism suspect, as an Italian judge began hearing arguments on whether to indict them.

Judge Caterina Interlandi must decide if there is enough evidence for a trial. If so, it would be the first criminal procedure over renditions, one of the most controversial aspects of U.S. President George W Bush's global ''war on terrorism''.

The agents are accused of involvement in abducting Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr and sending him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.

The suspects include 26 Americans, most believed to be CIA agents, and six Italians. None of the suspects attended today's closed-door courtroom hearing, lawyers said.

Any trial of the US agents would almost certainly take place in absentia. Washington is not expected to hand them over.

Lawyers for two key suspects said their clients wanted Washington and Rome to resolve the matter.

A lawyer for former Milan CIA station chief Robert Lady said her client had refused to cooperate with the court proceedings, arguing the matter should be sorted out ''state-to-state'' -- not by a Milan tribunal.

''Robert Seldon Lady thinks this affair (should) have a political solution and not a judicial solution,'' Daria Pesce said. She withdrew as Lady's defence lawyer, saying her client did not recognise the court's authority in the case.

The judge appointed Lady a state defence attorney.

A lawyer for ex-Italian military intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari said Italy's current and former prime ministers, Romano Prodi and Silvio Berlusconi, should be brought to court to attest to state secrecy restrictions.

Pollari has said he could not prepare a reasonable defence since information proving his innocence was classified.

The case was adjourned until January 29.

TORTURE ALLEGATIONS Prosecutors believe American CIA agents, with help from Italian military intelligence agency SISMI, snatched Nasr, an Egyptian also known as Abu Omar, from a Milan street, bundled him into a van and flew him out of Italy from a US airbase.

Nasr says he was tortured by Egyptian agents using electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse. He says he was offered freedom if he collaborated with authorities, but refused.

''I fear that it will go to trial,'' said Luigi Panella, defence attorney for Italian spy Marco Mancini.

Washington acknowledges secret transfers of terrorism suspects to third countries, but denies torturing suspects or handing them to countries that do.

A draft report last year by the European Parliament said Nasr had been ''held incommunicado and tortured'' after his suspected abduction by the CIA and SISMI.

Italian police officer Luciano Pironi has admitted he helped CIA agents grab Nasr, but said he was told the goal was to recruit the Muslim cleric as an informer. He said he was told the US and Italian governments had approved the operation.

Italy has denied this. Berlusconi, then prime minister, has expressed his ''full solidarity'' with the Italian agents.

Reuters BDP GC2034