This week in press freedoms and privacy rights | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/20/press-freedoms-manning-risen
In 2003, two dozen or so CIA agents kidnapped an Egyptian citizen from a street in Milan where he was living after Italy granted him asylum from persecution by the US-allied Mubarak regime. The CIA then rendered their kidnapped victim back to Egypt where he was interrogated and tortured. Italian authorities criminally charged the CIA agents with kidnapping, and after the US refused to turn them over for trial, they were convicted in abstentia. One of them, Milan CIA station chief Robert Lady, was sentenced to several years in prison. I wrote about that case, and US behavior in it, several months ago: here.
Lady ended up in Panama, and when the Italians learned of this, they requested his extradition to Italy. The US government intervened and applied significant pressure to Panamanian officials, who, yesterday, predictably released Lady and put him on a plane back to the US. The next time the US lectures the world about the rule of law and need for accountability, I’m sure this incident will be on many people’s minds. It should be.
On a la mémoire courte. Mais en effet, rappel tout à fait pertinent de la part de Greenwald.
En 2003, des agents de la CIA ont kidnappé en Italie un égyptien qui avait obtenu l’asile en Italie. Les agents de la CIA l’ont renvoyé à Mubarak pour qu’il y soit promptement et justement torturé dans le respect des droits de l’homme et de la démocratie... Pas de paix pour les méchâââânts, comme dirait Obama (ironie)...
Le responsable du bureau de la CIA en Italie en 2003 a été coincé au Panama par une demande d’extradition italienne, il a été en effet condamné par la justice italienne pour cet enlèvement. Les US ont fait ce qu’il fallait (pressions) pour que la demande d’extradition ne suive pas son cours. La morale était sauve, donc, pour les gentils (ironie).