Italy Replaces Intelligence Chief

In a file photo head of SISMI Italian Military intelligence Nicolo Pollari is shown in Rome, Sunday Aug. 6, 2006, at a hearing about the alleged CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan . Pollari, who is under investigation in the alleged CIA abduction of an Egyptian cleric, was replaced on Monday, Nov. 20, 2006, Italian news reports said. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) (Alessandra Tarantino - AP)

Prosecutors allege that Pollari and other top officials of SISMI worked with the Americans to abduct the cleric.

Two of Pollari's top aides, Gustavo Pignero and Marco Mancini, were arrested this summer and other SISMI officials were placed under investigation. Pignero has since died of cancer, while Mancini is said by his lawyers to be cooperating with prosecutors in implicating his boss.

Pollari has insisted in questioning before parliamentary committees that Italian intelligence had no role in Nasr's disappearance.

Conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi, who was in power at the time of the alleged abduction, has staunchly defended Pollari, maintaining that his government and SISMI were not informed of the alleged operation and did not take part in it.

Prodi's center-left government has refrained from backing the allegations against Pollari, but has been more lukewarm in its defense of the spy chief. It has maintained the question of whether Italy was told by its American allies of their supposed plan to kidnap Nasr is protected as a state secret.

Pollari, 63, took the helm of SISMI in 2001 after holding key posts with Italy's financial police and civilian secret service agency.

In 2005, he dealt with the fallout over the shooting death in Iraq of top officer Nicola Calipari, who was killed by U.S. gunfire as he traveled by car to Baghdad airport with a newly freed Italian hostage. The incident strained relations between Italy and the U.S., and the countries issued separate reports on the incident after failing to agree on a shared version of events.

Pollari will be replaced by Admiral Bruno Branciforte, 59, a fleet commander and former head of navy intelligence who has served as navy attache in Washington and as the Italian representative at U.S. Central Command during the war in Afghanistan.

Gen. Mario Mori, an officer from Carabinieri paramilitary police, was replaced at the helm of the domestic intelligence agency SISDE by Franco Gabrielli, a top anti-terrorism police official. Gen. Giuseppe Cucchi, a retired army officer with experience in local and international military politics, succeeds Emilio Del Mese at the coordinating body CESIS.