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USAF Demands Italy Lay Off Colonel in CIA Milan Caper
That’s the title of an article by Jeff Stein | September 23, 2009, on CQPolitics.com
An Air Force lawyer has told Italy to lay off Col. Joseph L. Romano III, an officer caught up in a CIA counterterrorism kidnapping case. Romano is one of 26 Americans being tried in absentia by Italy on kidnapping charges in connection with the abduction of an Al Qaeda suspect known as Abu Omar, in Feb. 2003. . . . On Tuesday the staff judge advocate of the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano wrote to the Minister of Justice in Rome saying that Italy does not have criminal jurisdiction over Romano under a NATO status-of-forces agreement signed by all its members in 1951. “Colonel Romano is subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the offenses alleged at the Tribunale of Milan are offenses that may be charged under various articles of the [UCMJ][.]