ITALY'S president has pardoned a US Air Force colonel convicted in absentia by Italian courts over the CIA-conducted abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect from a Milan street.
President Giorgio Napolitano's office said the head of state granted the pardon "in hopes of giving a solution to a situation considered by the United States to be without precedent because of the aspect of convicting a US military officer of NATO for deeds committed on Italian soil."
Joseph Romano was security chief of northern Italy's Aviano air base where the abducted Egyptian Muslim cleric was taken before being flown out of the country and eventually to Egypt.
He was one of 23 Americans convicted in absentia in the case and whose convictions were upheld last year by Italy's highest criminal court. Three other Americans had been acquitted in a first trial because of diplomatic immunity, but earlier this year, a Milan appeals court convicted the three, who included a former CIA station chief.
The trial was the first in the world involving the CIA's extraordinary rendition program in which terror suspects were abducted and transferred to third countries where torture is permitted. Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was abducted in 2003 while walking down a street in Milan, where he preached. The cleric was hustled by car off to Aviano, then transferred to a US military base in Germany, before being flown to Egypt, where he said he was tortured. He was eventually released.
Romano's defence said he was never formally notified of charges. Twenty-three Americans were convicted, all in absentia, and Italy's highest criminal court last year upheld the convictions.
That top court decision paved the way for extradition requests by Italian authorities, but so far none have come from Premier Mario Monti's government, which is staying on in a caretaker role following elections earlier this year. Napolitano, as president, has the power to grant pardons, and he issued Romano's pardon a month before his seven-year-term expires.
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