A former CIA operative who was convicted by an Italian court of kidnapping a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003 has been detained by authorities in Panama, raising the prospect that he could be extradited, according to Italian news reports.
Robert Seldon Lady was among 23 U.S. government employees — most of whom worked for the CIA — who were convicted for their roles in snatching a cleric with suspected ties to al-Qaida off a busy street in Milan and secretly transporting him to Egypt.
The 2005 case became a source of embarrassment for the CIA and called attention to the controversial practice known as "extraordinary rendition," in which terrorism suspects secretly captured in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were delivered to governments suspected of engaging in torture.