Jeffrey W. Castelli is a CIA officer who served as CIA station chief in Rome at the time of the Niger uranium forgeries. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] His subsequent involvement in the CIA-led kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr would lead to his subsequent sentencing to seven years in prison, by an Italian court, in 2013. [8] [9]
Castelli was CIA station chief in Rome at the time of the kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr on February 17, 2003, and was among 26 U.S. nationals (and one of the few with confirmed identities) subsequently indicted by Italian authorities [10] for their involvement in what in the Italian press is referred to as the Imam Rapito (or "kidnapped cleric") affair.
On February 4, 2013, Castelli was convicted to seven years in prison, by a Milan court, [8] [9] along with three other CIA officials. None of the convicted US officials were present at the trial and none of them have been extradited to Italy later. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]
Joseph Charles Wilson IV was an American diplomat who was best known for his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium; his New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Africa"; and the subsequent leaking by the Bush/Cheney administration of information pertaining to the identity of his wife Valerie Plame as a CIA officer. He also served as the CEO of a consulting firm he founded, JC Wilson International Ventures, and as the vice chairman of Jarch Capital, LLC.
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977–2007.
The Niger uranium forgeries were forged documents initially released in 2001 by SISMI, which seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein in Iraq to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis. On the basis of these documents and other indicators, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom asserted that Iraq violated United Nations sanctions against Iraq by attempting to procure nuclear material for the purpose of creating weapons of mass destruction.
Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored kidnapping in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror, which had the purpose of circumventing the source country's laws on interrogation, detention, extradition and/or torture. Extraordinary rendition is a type of extraterritorial abduction, but not all extraterritorial abductions include transfer to a third country.
Stephen R. Kappes was the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DDCIA), until his resignation on April 14, 2010. He had served in the CIA since 1981, with a two-year hiatus. A career clandestine operations professional, Kappes supervised the extraordinary rendition program, a non-judicial system of rendering persons suspected of terrorism to secret locations where most of them were interrogated. Kappes also helped persuade Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi to abandon his nuclear weapons program in 2003. In 2009, Kappes was convicted in absentia by an Italian court for his headquarters-based role in the rendition and torture of an Egyptian citizen who was kidnapped from Italian soil by the CIA.
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, is an Egyptian cleric. In 2003, he was living in Milan, Italy, from where he was kidnapped and tortured in Egypt. This "Abu Omar case" prompted a series of investigations in Italy, culminating in the criminal convictions of 22 CIA operatives, a U.S. Air Force colonel, and two Italian accomplices, as well as Nasr, himself.
The Plame affair erupted in July 2003, when journalist Robert Novak revealed that Valerie Plame worked as covert employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, although the seeds of the scandal had been laid during 2001 and 2002 as the Bush administration investigated allegations that Iraq had purchased Nigerien uranium.
Rocco Martino is an Italian secret agent. He was born in Tropea, province of Catanzaro.
Marco Mancini was an Italian secret agent who was a member of the Carabinieri and the Dipartimento delle Informazioni per la Sicurezza (DIS). He was also the second-highest-ranking officer of SISMI, the military intelligence agency of Italy, until his 5 July 2006 arrest for his participation in the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr. He was then indicted a second time on 13 December 2006 for his role in the SISMI-Telecom scandal.
Robert Seldon Lady is an American intelligence officer. Lady was the CIA' station chief in Milan during the Abu Omar case.
Nicolò Pollari is a general of the Italian Guardia di Finanza, who was the former head of Italy's national military intelligence agency, or SISMI, from 1 October 2001 until his resignation on 20 November 2006.
The Special Collection Service (SCS), codenamed F6, is a highly classified joint U.S. Central Intelligence Agency–National Security Agency program charged with inserting eavesdropping equipment in difficult-to-reach places, such as foreign embassies, communications centers, and foreign government installations. Established in the late 1970s and headquartered in Beltsville, Maryland, the SCS has been involved in operations ranging from the Cold War to hunting Al-Qaeda after the September 11 attacks.
Colonel Joseph L. Romano III is an officer in the United States Air Force and one of 26 American nationals charged by Italian authorities with the 2003 kidnapping of Italian resident cleric Hassan Nasr as part of an alleged covert CIA operation. Romano was subsequently convicted in absentia of kidnapping. On 5 April 2013, Giorgio Napolitano, the President of the Italian Republic, pardoned Romano.
The Abu Omar Case was the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar. The case was picked by the international media as one of the better-documented cases of extraordinary rendition carried out in a joint operation by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Italian Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI) in the context of the global war on terrorism declared by the George W. Bush administration.
Guido Salvini is an Italian judge, based in Milan. He issued European arrest warrants in 2005 against approximatively 20 CIA agents accused of having taken part in the abduction of Abu Omar, the Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003. The case is known in Italy as the Abu Omar case. Before that, Guido Salvini was in charge of investigations, since July 1988, concerning Italy's strategy of tension during the 1970s.
Barton David Gellman is an American author and journalist known for his reports on the September 11 attacks, on Dick Cheney's vice presidency, and on the global surveillance disclosure. Beginning in June 2013, he authored The Washington Post's coverage of the U.S. National Security Agency, based on top secret documents provided to him by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. He published a book for Penguin Press on the rise of the surveillance-industrial state in May 2020, and joined the staff of The Atlantic.
Sabrina de Sousa is a Portuguese-American ex-CIA operative convicted of kidnapping. In 2009 she was convicted of kidnapping in Italy for her role in the 2003 abduction of the Muslim imam Abu Omar, who was kidnapped in Milan and subsequently tortured. Sousa was sentenced to four years in prison for her role in the kidnapping. A European Arrest Warrant valid throughout Europe was subsequently issued for her arrest, and she was arrested in Portugal under that arrest warrant in 2015. She was due to be extradited back to Italy to serve her sentence, having exhausted her appeal rights against her extradition in Portugal, when the President of Italy issued her a pardon ending extradition proceedings against her in February 2017. She was still due to serve community service when she left Italy for the US in October 2019 citing fears for her safety.
Laura Poitras is an American director and producer of documentary films.
Edward Joseph Snowden is an American former NSA intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. He became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2022.
During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year.