Italians Detail Lavish CIA Operation

The van entered the base without being stopped at the regular security checkpoints, Milan investigators found. Court documents show that a U.S. colonel at the air base in charge of security received three phone calls from the operatives as they drove toward Aviano.

Milan prosecutors said they would ask the U.S. government for permission to interrogate the colonel, concluding that "it reasonably appears that he was involved with the execution of this kidnapping and safekeeping of the hostage." The colonel now works at the Pentagon, according to a report Saturday in Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper.

A few hours after his arrival at Aviano, Nasr was put aboard a Learjet and taken to Ramstein Air Base, a U.S. military installation in Germany. There, he was transferred to another plane, which flew him to Cairo, Italian court records show.

Most of the CIA operatives apparently did not accompany Nasr on his flights. Hotel records show that all but one of the Americans allegedly involved in the abduction stayed in Italy for a few days afterward. Four of them checked into luxury hotels in Venice. Two others spent a couple of days in the Italian Alps before leaving the country.

Milan investigators determined, however, that the operative they described as the leader and organizer of the kidnapping -- a CIA officer based in Milan whose identity was well known to Italian counterterrorism officials -- showed up in Cairo five days after Nasr disappeared, according to the court records.

One remaining mystery in the case is whether Italian intelligence officials knew about the operation beforehand.

Opposition politicians in Rome have asked the parliamentary intelligence oversight committee to question Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu and Defense Minister Antonio Martino about whether they were aware of and had approved the operation, known in CIA parlance as an "extraordinary rendition." Cases that have come to light in the past have generally proceeded with the cooperation of local officials.

Marco Minniti, a member of the Democratic Left opposition party, said the request was made "to ascertain if members of Italian intelligence participated in the operation and, if so, what role they had."

Paolo Cento, a Green Party member, said: "The alternatives are only two. Either our authorities knew, or the American 007s had full freedom of action on our territory."

Correspondent Daniel Williams in Rome contributed to this report.