Milan CIA station chief Seldon Lady thought he had landed in heaven. Milan and Rome are prime stations, everyone wants to work there.
But Seldon Lady did something that is usually done in third world countries, where the law is customarily bent to accommodate powerful allies.
Seldon was responsible for the abduction and extraordinary rendition of a Muslim cleric in Milan. Whether there was evidence of the cleric's wrongdoing matters little. The sovereignty of a country, especially a European country, cannot so easily be prevaricated.
Such was the fury with which the Bush government pursued 'persons of interest' or terrorist suspects after 9/11, that it thought it needn't bother with asking the country that hosted the person what they wished to pursue.
Ten years later, Seldon is a fugitive. He is apprehended in Panama, under orders from Italy to retain him, so that he can be extradited.
Comparisons to Snowden fall like ripe pears from a tree, but those who do forget that Panama is little more than an American outpost. At least that's the way the Americans see it.
Not long after the clamorous apprehension, Lady was packed like a fresh crate of apples and shipped back to the motherland.
Somewhere in this conundrum appears to have been lost the fact that Italy and the U.S. have an iron clad relationship, when it comes to mutual assistance in law enforcement matters and extradition.
So what happened exactly? Detailed at length in a book titled "A kidnapping in Milan: The CIA on trial", by S Hendricks, and a couple of others, the story is as fascinating as it is terrible.
Lady in fact was none too pleased when the administration basically forced him, against his objections, to render the cleric without telling the Italian government.
A few years later, Lady's career was over and he was sentenced in absentia for violating Italian law.
Lady himself did not take precautions to hide his activity, flying out to Egypt shortly after the rendition and leaving an itinerary in the house he was renting in Italy. The Italian authorities in fact had a field day following the CIA"s operatives' trail. They did not use satellite phones, or try to hide their conversations, actions and plans.
The job, as brazen as it was, seemed to have been done by amateurs.
In the end, 13 people were indicted and 24 sought for the rendition in Milan.
For the Italian government to seek out operatives of its biggest ally shows how serious this incident was. It not only signified a refusal to adhere to the extreme measures the US was undertaking to secure what it wanted or who it wanted, but a reaffirmation that alliances do not translate in prevarication of a Nation's constitutional rights.
From there, Lady's life spiraled out of control. The Italian government seized his villa, his wife left him, and he was scared to death of being singled out by Muslim terrorists, not to mention the fact that he was a wanted fugitive.
Pressure was brought to bear on the Italian government to forgo the case against the CIA officials, but the court in Milan would not have it. Lady for his part, reasserted that he was just the arm of the operation and not the mind, and that anyway, it was an action of counterterrorism not just some criminal endeavor. Lady in fact, did bear the brunt of an administrationo hell bent in getting what it wanted.
Lady's brush with the law, however was short lived. Anyone who chalked one up for the law was duly but expectably disappointed when Panama dutifully returned the CIA operative to its benefactor from the north.
Italy will have to wait some more. In the end, it's more about showing the US who's boss than really getting their men.
Partial source : WashPost/ 7.21.13
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