Cellphones were crucial to tracing CIA, Italian official testifies

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/28/europe/italy.php

MILAN: A top anti-terrorism official told an Italian court Wednesday that investigators had reconstructed the alleged CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan by tracing cellphones used by Americans.

Bruno Megale, the head of Milan's anti-terrorism police, identified 17 cellphone numbers in use by U.S. citizens that he said were active and present in the area where the cleric was kidnapped. The abduction was allegedly part of the CIA's so-called extraordinary rendition program, in which terror suspects have been moved from country to country without public legal proceedings..

Megale testified during the trial of 26 Americans and others in the kidnapping of Osama Moutafa Hassan Nasr, the cleric also known as Abu Omar, on Feb. 17, 2003.

He said investigators had been able to initially identify 11 cellphones in close contact with each other during the two hours surrounding Nasr's disappearance. They used software to identify traffic patterns, Megale said.

"We saw strong anomalies. Eleven users were in strong contact with each other," Megale said. "The telephone calls got more intense closer to the time of Abu Omar's kidnapping."


By further analyzing traffic, investigators identified a total of 17 cellphones deployed in the operation in Milan - one group around the area of the kidnapping and another group closer to the highway that appeared to be the transfer unit, Megale said.

[Pavulon]

1. One can also take from this that city police

have access to highly sophisticated systems for tracing cellular phone users. It would be interesting if the CIA was aware of that and acted accordingly.

[maryf]

2. Hoist in their own petard?

[gateley]

3. Whoa --26 Americans are on trial for kidnapping in Milan?

I had no idea. I think this is pretty big news - further strengthening rendition charges against this administration.

I find it ironic that the CIA kind of gets busted by the same technology they undoubtedly use. Did they think they were the only ones with that know=how?

[ThomWV]

4. You realized of course that the NSA will have intercepts of every one of those calls

Every word will have been recorded and is housed on whatever storage media they used at the time in the vaults at Fort Mead, Maryland even as we speak.