Italian judge freezes CIA kidnap trial

ROME, June 18 (Reuters) An Italian judge temporarily suspended today the trial of US and Italian spies charged with kidnapping a terrorism suspect in Milan and then flying him to Egypt, where he says he tortured.

The judge, trying the Americans in absentia, ruled that a higher court needed to decide first whether Milan prosecutors had broken state secrecy rules when pursuing their case, as Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government contends.

Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, says he was tortured under interrogation in Egypt with electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse.

REUTERS RN PM1346