FACTBOX: Italy convicts 23 Americans in CIA rendition case

(Reuters) - An Italian judge sentenced 23 Americans to up to eight years in prison on Wednesday for the abduction of a Muslim cleric in 2003, in a landmark ruling against the CIA "rendition" flights used by the previous U.S. government.

WHO WERE THE DEFENDANTS?

Twenty-six Americans were tried in absentia, 25 of them CIA agents at the time of the abduction. They included the former CIA station chief in Rome, Jeffrey Castelli, his counterpart in Milan, Robert Seldon Lady, former first secretary at the U.S. embassy in Rome Ralph Russomando, and Betnie Medero and Sabrina de Sousa, both former second secretaries at the Rome embassy.

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Romano, head of security at the U.S. air base in Aviano in northerneast Italy, was also charged with taking part in the abduction.

Seven Italians also faced charges, including the former head of Italy's Sismi intelligence service, Nicolo Pollari.

WHAT WERE THE ACCUSATIONS?

That a CIA-led team grabbed Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a Muslim cleric suspected of recruiting militants for Iraq, in broad daylight from a Milan street on February 17, 2003.

Prosecutors say Nasr was flown from the Aviano base in northeast Italy, via the Ramstein base in Germany to Egypt, where he was tortured with electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse.

Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was released from jail in Egypt in 2007 and lives in Alexandria.

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE CASE?

Prosecutors began investigating the case after Nasr rang his wife from detention in Egypt. Indictments were issued in June 2005 but the case moved slowly, partly because Italian governments refused to seek the extradition of U.S. suspects.

U.S. authorities did not reply to Milan prosecutors' requests to hear witnesses and gather information.

Italian prosecutors say they traced four cellphones used in the abduction to the area around the U.S. embassy in Rome.

An Italian anti-terrorist policeman, Luciano Pironi, admitted taking part in the abduction, saying it was ordered by Lady. The former head of Sismi's office in Milan also said Lady had told him he was plotting Abu Omar's abduction.

In a judicial raid on a Sismi safehouse in Rome, prosecutors say they found a Sismi document from May 2003 showing the CIA had informed them Abu Omar was being interrogated in Cairo.

In March 2009 Italy's Constitutional Court barred much of the prosecution evidence including phone taps and testimony from Sismi agents, ruling it broke state secrecy rules.