'This Is How They Kidnapped Me'

The Chicago Tribune has published a letter from Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, an Egyptian who allegedly was kidnapped by CIA officials in Italy and transported to Egypt, where he has been in detention ever since. The case is being investigated by Italian officials and nearly two dozen Americans are under indictment, although it is unlikely they will be brought to trial.

The letter shows the result of the U.S. secret renditions policy: torture. It is not an afterthought, an unfortunate aftermath to a legal action. It is embedded and inevitable in the policy. Any action taken in secret, done illegally and without oversight and without regard for international legal standards is predetermined to fall into criminality and in this case torture. His letter from prison cites torture from electric shocks, beatings and sexual abuse.

Furthermore, the American action appears to have thwarted justice. It interrupted an Italian investigation into the Egyptian. Today's Tribune reports that the worse charges the CIA had against him -- a plot to blow up a school bus -- had no basis in fact. And the Tribune reports the rendition may have been prompted by a desire to attempt to turn him as an informant. All of that has failed as well as the charges brought against him by the the Italian investigation. In other words, the one legal case against him has been disrupted by the illegal rendition.

For the Tribune article on the case, click here.
For the full text of his letter, click here.