An Italian court has sentenced 23 US CIA agents in absentia to prison. The agents have been found guilty of kidnapping a Muslim cleric.

The cleric, an Egyptian man called Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, was abducted from a street in Milan in 2003 and flown to Egypt, where he says he was tortured under interrogation and held without charge for several years.

The former head of the CIA station in Milan was sentenced to eight years in prison, the others received five years. The agents were tried in absentia because the Italian government has up to now refused to sign an extradition request.

It is the first time that CIA agents have stood trial for “renditions”. The US considers the rounding up of terrorist suspects and their interrogation in third countries legal. US President Barack Obama has not ruled out the use of rendition in the future.

Photo: Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr - EPA/ANP