SpyTalk

A judge in Milan ruled Wednesday that the trial of Italian and American intelligence agents accused of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric known as Abu Omar, suspected of ties to al Qaeda, would continue, "even though critical evidence had been ruled inadmissible, severely undermining the prosecution's case," according to a local account. 

In March the Italian Supreme Court excluded the prosecution's use documents seized from Italian and U.S. intelligence operatives, "narrowing the chances of a ruling in favor of the cleric," according to the account in the International Herald Tribune.

"We're continuing, but it is more of a formality," the lawyer for Nicolò Pollari, the former chief of Italian military intelligence, who is among those on trial, told the paper.

Prosecutor Armando Spataro acknowledged that the ruling virtually ruled out obtaining a conviction of top Italian secret service officials charged with collusion in the February 2003 kidnapping of Abu Omar, whose real name is Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr.  

But in an email, the prosecutor, Armando Spataro,  insisted "there was sufficient evidence for convictions [of the Americans], even excluding materials now deemed classified by the Constitutional Court."

The proceedings will resume May 27,  "when we'll interrogate all the defendants," Spataro said.

According to the charges, 26 Americans, all but one identified as CIA operatives, are standing trial in absentia.

Should the Americans be found guilty, the chances of  the Obama administration extraditing them for imprisonment are considered practically zero, observers say.

But even now the defendants risk arrest and deportation from any other country that chose to honor Italian warrants.

Last week  one of the defendants, Sabrina DeSousa, complained to SpyTalk that she felt she had been "abandoned" by the U.S. government, and filed suit for her legal costs. 

"I had nothing to do with the planning, and nothing to do with the kidnapping, of this guy," maintained DeSousa, who was officially listed as a second secretary at the American embassy in Rome and the U.S. consulate in Milan at the time of the Feb. 2003 disappearance of Abu Omar. 

To the contrary, however, intelligence sources say she was part of a team conducting surveillance on the target.

Nasr was "rendered" to Egypt, where he says he was interrogated and tortured. 

Cell phone records obtained by Spataro's investigators traced the movements of U.S. operatives from Milan to Aviano Air Base, where they say Nasr was flown out of the country, to Germany and then Cairo.

Those records, along with voluminous materials , including CIA surveillance photos of Nasr,  that investigators seized from the home of the top agency official in Milan, Robert Seldon Lady, will also be presented at the trial.

Lady is said to have been in Cairo while Nasr was under interrogation. He has retired from the CIA.

Nasr remains in Egypt under a kind of house arrest, but his lawyer sent a letter to Spataro describing his alleged abduction from Milan and torture by Egyptian interrogators.