ROME -- A media watchdog group on Friday protested searches at two Italian newspaper offices in connection with the investigation into an alleged CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003.
Police last week searched the Milan and Rome offices of the daily La Repubblica and the offices of the Piccolo newspaper in Trieste, in northern Italy, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said.
Authorities seized papers, notes and computer files from La Repubblica's Cristina Zagaria, and also searched her house as well as that of Piccolo reporter Claudio Erne.
"We are alarmed at the attitude of the judiciary, which is freely violating the secrecy of sources of investigative journalists," the group said in a statement.
Editors of both papers have expressed concern for the independence of the media, the group said.
The searches were ordered by Brescia prosecutor Giancarlo Tarquini, who is investigating accusations that the journalists violated legal confidentiality rules and handled secret documents. The head of the SISMI secret services office in Trieste, Lorenzo Pillinini, said the journalists improperly quoted remarks he made during an interrogation concerning the 2003 kidnapping.
Calls to Tarquini's office went unanswered Friday.
Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, an Egyptian cleric and terrorist suspect also known as Abu Omar, was allegedly kidnapped by CIA operatives from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003. Prosecutors say the operation represented a severe breach of Italian sovereignty that compromised their anti-terrorism efforts, and have already incriminated 22 purported CIA agents.
The operation was believed to be part of a CIA program known as "extraordinary rendition" in which terrorism suspects are transferred to third countries.
Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi maintained his government and Italian secret services had not taken part in the operation or been informed. In March, SISMI director Nicolo Pollari told EU lawmakers that Italian agents had no knowledge of the operation.
