A Milan judge today ordered 26 Americans to stand trial with Italian spies for the kidnapping in 2003 of a terrorism suspect.
Prosecutors say a CIA-led team, with the help of Italy's SISMI military intelligence agency, seized Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, off a Milan street in February 2003, bundled him into a van and drove him to a military base in northern Italy.
From there, prosecutors allege they flew him via Germany to Egypt where he says he was tortured with electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse.
Among those indicted are the former heads of the US Central Intelligence Agency in Rome and Milan, Jeff Castelli and Robert Lady, and the former head of SISMI, Nicolo Pollari, court sources said.
It is expected to be the first criminal trial anywhere over "renditions", although the Americans will almost certainly be tried in absentia.
The trial is scheduled to begin on June 8th.
