High comedy in the land of the Caesars

From The Washington Post:

ROME, Feb. 16 -- An Italian judge gave approval Friday for what will be the first overseas criminal trial of CIA officers involved in a covert counterterrorism operation, as a court in Milan indicted more than two dozen Americans on charges of kidnapping a radical Muslim cleric four years ago.

After a judicial hearing that lasted two months, the court handed down indictments against 25 CIA operatives, a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and five Italian spies who are accused of grabbing an imam, Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, off the street and stuffing him into a white van as he walked to noonday prayers Feb. 17, 2003. Nasr was taken from Milan to his native Egypt, where he claims he was tortured in prison for more than three years.

[. . .]

Nasr was released this week by an Egyptian court after spending nearly four years in prison. He is staying with his family in Alexandria, Egypt, and is considering filing a civil lawsuit against the Italian and U.S. governments, according to a Cairo lawyer, Montasser al-Zayat, who has worked on his behalf.

Attorneys involved in the case said it was unlikely Nasr would return to Milan to testify in the trial; he faces arrest in Italy on terrorism-related charges that were filed after his abduction. Sansalone said the outcome of the trial could change if Nasr does testify, however.

So let's get this straight. The Italian government admits that he is a terrorist, but they are still going to go ahead with this Keystone Cops prosecution of men that will never see the inside of an Italian courtroom, much less jail?

Of course I can't heap too much contempt on the Italians. At least they aren't granting the terrorist immunity so that he can come back and testify the way that the US government immunized an illegal alien drug smuggler so that he could come into this country and testify against the two hero Border Patrol officers who shot him in the ass.

Bottom line. He was a radical Muslim cleric. That means that you can't beat him hard enough. You cannot torture him gruesomely enough. You cannot kill him dead enough. The hell that he will burn in cannot be hot enough.

Give the guys who snatched him and sent him to where he could get a tiny microscopic taste of what he has coming to him a medal and let them get on with their jobs.