A Milan judge on Friday ordered 26 CIA agents and six Italian intelligence officers to stand trial for the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric here four years ago.
The June 8 trial, if it goes ahead, will be the first judicial examination of the controversial American policy of 'extraordinary rendition', the abduction of terrorism suspects in one country in order to have them interrogated in another.
The suspected CIA agents include the former CIA station chiefs in Milan and Rome, Robert Seldon Lady and Jeff Castelli. They would be tried in absentia.
The Italian defendants include the former head of SISMI military intelligence Niccolo' Pollari and his former No.2 Marco Mancini.
An Italian policeman who admitted fingering Milan imam Abu Omar for the CIA plea-bargained a short suspended sentence on Friday.
The trial could be halted, however, by an Italian government suit against the Milan prosecutors.
Italy's Constitutional Court has been asked to judge the government's assertion that the prosecutors overstepped their constitutional powers and needlessly exposed other agents.
A ruling in the case is expected to take six months, but Milan judges could suspend the CIA trial much sooner, when the Constitutional Court agrees to look at the government's case.
Egyptian refugee Abu Omar, whose real name is Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, was the imam of Milan's main mosque when he disappeared from the northern city on February 17, 2003.
Prosecutors say Omar was snatched by a team of CIA operatives with Sismi's help and taken via Germany to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
Omar was released from an Egyptian prison on Sunday and let it be known that he wants to return to Italy, despite being wanted here on terrorism charges.
The cleric's lawyer said his client also wants to sue former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi - in power when he was abducted - for 10 million euros and Italian and US intelligence agencies for 20 million euros.
