European governments, including Italy, allowed the U.S. to secretly transport terror suspects through their airspace for interrogation elsewhere. The European Parliament report condemns extraordinary rendition as an illegal tool used by the U.S. in its ‘fight against terrorism’ and blames European countries for having ‘renounced control, closing their eyes to CIA flights’. Between 2001 and 2005 ‘at least 1245 flights operated by the CIA secretly flew through European airspace and landed in European airports.
The report singles out Italy, together with Britain and Germany, focusing on the role allegedly played by Italian officials in the extraordinary case of Egyptian cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr. Known as Abu Omar, Nasr was the imam of Milan’s main mosque when he disappeared from the northern Italian city in February 2003. Italian prosecutors say he was snatched by a team of CIA operatives with the complicity of the Italian secret services and taken via Germany to Egypt, where he was allegedly detained and tortured.