One of the 23 Americans whom an Italian court convicted in absentia of kidnapping a terrorism suspect in 2003 has been arrested in Panama on an Italian arrest warrant, the Italian justice ministry’s press office said Thursday. The ministry identified the arrested man as Robert Seldon Lady, who Italian prosecutors said had been the CIA base chief in Mila…
VATICAN CITY (AP) – Italy’s most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service.An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Magdi Allam infuriated some Muslims with his books and columns in the new…
MILAN, Italy – Masked thieves drilled a tunnel and broke into a jewelry showroom as employees were preparing for a VIP showing, making off with gold, diamonds and rubies in a brazen daylight heist, the jeweler said.The bags of jewels stolen Sunday from Damiani — maker of the diamond bracelet that graced Oscar winner Tilda Swinton’s wrist — included gold,…
Palermo – The lair of Sicilian mafia ‘boss-of-bosses’ Salvatore Lo Piccolo, who was arrested this week, has yielded a mix of the sacred and profane, including a mobster’s list of 10 dos and don’ts such as avoiding pubs and not looking at other mafiosi’s wives.Strewn amongst pistols, Cuban cigars, bottles of US bourbon whisky and dozens of ‘santini’ – pape…
Text of report by Italian newspaper La Repubblica on 27 September[Unattributed report: “Journalists Threatened by the Former Imam on the Internet”]Rome – Abu Sayyaf, the former imam of Carmagnola, has been attacking and insulting journalists from [news agency] Aki- AdnKronos International, from [Milan daily] Corriere della Sera, and from [Rome daily] La R…
ROME – Italian police arrested three Moroccans — an imam and two of his aids — they accuse of being part of a militant cell that allegedly used a mosque in a central Italian city as a terror training camp.The group held courses on hand-to-hand combat and used propaganda films and documents downloaded from the Internet to teach how to prepare poisons and e…
ROME – Three gunmen hijacked a bus traveling in northern Italy on Tuesday and set it on fire before running into a police blockade, officials and news reports said. The passengers were freed and were safe, and one police officer was injured.The regional bus was traveling toward Novara, a town about 60 miles northeast of Turin. A police official in Novara…
ROME – Italy’s strategy of negotiating the release of Taliban militants in exchange for the freedom of an Italian hostage in Afghanistan has placed Premier Romano Prodi in the firing line days before a crucial parliamentary vote on keeping the country’s troops in Afghanistan.The move has drawn the ire of the conservative opposition — whose backing might b…
Cairo, 16 June (AKI) – Abu Omar, an Egyptian cleric reportedly kidnapped by CIA agents in Milan in February 2003, wants to return to Italy and sue former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi for Italy’s involvement in the plot, his attorney says. “Abu Omar wants to return to Italy, he considers himself an Italian,” Montasser Al Zayat told Turin-daily…
ROME (AP) – Prosecutors in Milan said Friday they have requested that Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi be indicted on charges of corruption.The premier is accused of ordering at least $600,000 paid to British lawyer David Mills – whose indictment also was being sought – in 1997 in exchange for the lawyer’s false testimony in two trials against Berlusconi…