Italy pardons US colonel in CIA case

5 April 2013 Last updated at 19:06 ET

Abu Omar said he was tortured in Egypt

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has pardoned a US Air Force colonel convicted in absentia over the rendition of an Egyptian imam in 2003.

Joseph Romano was one of 23 Americans tried and sentenced by Italian courts over the CIA-led operation to abduct a cleric known as Abu Omar.

The Egyptian said he was flown to his home country and tortured there.

Mr Napolitano's office cited what it said were changes to US security policy undertaken by President Barack Obama.

It said Mr Obama had "immediately after his election, put an end to an approach to the challenges to national security... considered by Italy and the European Union not compatible with fundamental principles of rule of law".

It added that the Italian president "hoped to provide a solution to an affair considered by the United States to be without precedent because of the conviction of a US military officer of Nato for deeds committed on Italian soil".

The statement said the decision to pardon Col Romano was inspired by the same principle that Italy hoped to see used in the case of two Italian marines facing murder charges in India over the shooting of two fishermen.

Nato base

Abu Omar was subject to the process known as extraordinary rendition, through which the CIA transferred terrorism suspects to countries that practiced torture.

The policy was increasingly used in the wake of the 11 September, 2001 attacks in the US.

Italian courts convicted 22 CIA personnel over the Abu Omar case. All are believed to be living in the US and are unlikely to serve their sentences.

Col Romano was the only American convicted who was not a CIA employee.

At the time of the rendition, he was in charge of the northern Italian military air base at Aviano, where Abu Omar was flown before continuing to Egypt via Germany.

The Italian trials, which began in 2007, were the first to convict Americans over extraordinary rendition.

Last month, a court in Milan sentenced Italy's former intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari to 10 years in prison, and his former deputy, Marco Mancini, to nine years, over the Abu Omar case.

Both are expected to appeal.

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Italy court to rule on Knox retrial

25 March 2013 Last updated at 07:07 ET

Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito have always denied any involvement in the murder of Meredith Kercher

Italy's highest court is due to decide whether US student Amanda Knox should be retried over the killing of her British flatmate Meredith Kercher.

Prosecutors are arguing that the acquittal of Miss Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito on appeal in October 2011 was flawed.

The pair spent four years in jail for the murder of the 21-year-old student in Perugia in November 2007.

They have both always denied any involvement in the murder.

The killing and subsequent trials made headlines around the world.

Miss Knox and Mr Sollecito had been facing 26-year and 25-year jail terms respectively following their initial convictions in 2009.

But they were acquitted after the defence successfully argued that DNA evidence on a kitchen knife, thought to be the murder weapon, could be flawed.

Miss Knox, who now lives in her home town of Seattle, was "very anxious" about the latest hearing, according to her Italian lawyer.

If the court upholds the October 2011 verdict, this protracted case will finally be over and Miss Knox and Mr Sollecito will have their innocence confirmed in the eyes of the law, the BBC's Alan Johnston reports from Rome.

However, if the court rules against the verdict, a new appeals process would be reordered, meaning there would be a retrial, he adds.

Points of law

Meredith Kercher, from Croydon, south London, had been on a year abroad from Leeds University when she was found semi-naked in her bedroom and with her throat cut in the cottage she shared with Miss Knox in November 2007.

Meredith Kercher's family say they are still seeking answers to her brutal killing

She had also been sexually assaulted, leading prosecutors to believe she was killed in a brutal sex game that went wrong.

Ivory Coast national Rudy Guede was convicted in a separate trial of sexually assaulting and stabbing Meredith Kercher and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He has admitted being at the house on the night of the murder, but denies murder.

Prosecution evidence of Miss Knox's DNA on the handle of the alleged murder weapon, and Miss Kercher's DNA on the blade of the knife, which was found at Mr Sollecito's flat, had been key to the original convictions of Miss Knox and Mr Sollecito.

But the appeal in October 2011 heard an independent review cast doubt over those DNA traces due to concerns about poor procedures in evidence collection and forensic testing and the possibility of contamination.

Prosecutors argue that the October 2011 acquittals failed to take into account other key evidence against Miss Knox and Mr Sollecito.

The judges in Monday's hearing will be considering points of law rather than the evidence, and could deliver their verdict later on in the day.

Meredith Kercher's family told British media this week that they hope the latest hearing will provide some answers to the "many unanswered questions" about her brutal killing.

Neither Miss Knox, who is preparing to publish her memoirs, and Mr Sollecito, a student in Verona, are expected to attend the hearing.

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