13-07-19 Ex-CIA Milan Chief Held In Panama Over Cleric Abduction

A series of recent events, all related to the conduct self-authorized by the US under the War on Terror, relative to GITMO, whistleblowers, Extraordinary Rendition, US policing of all world banks, should raise doubts regarding Washington's grasp on power... And the language the Washington Post is using to skirt the issue is hillarious... jz

The story of how a Milan CIA station chief became a fugitive, now caught in Panama

By Max Fisher, Published: July 18 at 4:42 pmE-mail the writer

A November 2009 photo from Milan shows Italian judge Oscar Maggi reading the verdict against Robert Lady and other CIA officials. (GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/Getty Images)

When Robert Seldon Lady first arrived in Milan, Italy’s fashion and business hub, he was officially listed as an employee of the U.S. State Department with the title of deputy consul. In fact, he was the head of the CIA’s Milan station. That was 2000. Within a few years, Lady would become an international fugitive on the run from Italian police; he would go from a highly respected CIA officer to, for many in Europe, a symbol of everything that was wrong with the United States’ war on terror and a means to publicly pressure the Bush administration.

On Thursday, Lady was detained in Panama, possibly to answer for the Italian extradition charges that have stood against him for years. The story of Lady’s journey over the past decade is controversial, disputed and full of holes. But it is a fascinating episode from a complicated period in U.S. foreign policy – one that, as his recent detention reminds us, isn’t so long ago as we might think.

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