AN editorial this week in the Wall Street Journal provided a frightening insight into US thinking about the behaviour of European governments in relation to extraordinary rendition.

An Egyptian cleric today claimed the CIA “savagely” tortured him after he was allegedly kidnapped off the streets of Italy before being sent to Egypt for further interrogation.

An Egyptian Muslim preacher allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents off the streets of an Italian city and taken to Egypt has been released, his lawyer and a security official said today.

European investigators looking into claims of secret CIA prisons will release an interim report today saying US agents illegally transported and held terrorist suspects on the continent, the leader of the inquiry says.

AN ITALIAN judge has issued European arrest warrants for 22 purported CIA operatives in connection with the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric from a Milan street in 2003.

Spain’s National Court has received a prosecutor’s report on allegations that the CIA used an airport on the Spanish island of Mallorca for a program of covert transfers of terror suspects, court officials said today.