Cleric kidnapped by CIA vows to sue Egypt over his torture

The Egyptian imam abducted in Italy by CIA agents and spirited to his homeland will sue Egypt over his torture there, he said on Wednesday.

"I am about to launch legal proceedings and will soon consult my lawyer," Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr told Adnkronos International (AKI).

Nasr also said he would ask Italy to open an investigation on the torture he suffered "at the hands of Egypt's repressive apparatus".

His comments came after the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that Italy had abused state secrecy in Nasr's 2003 abduction from a Milan street and 'rendering' by the CIA to Egypt for interrogation, where he was tortured while in custody.

The Strasbourg-based court found Italy guilty of numerous human rights violations and ordered it to pay a total of 115,000 euros compensation to Nasr - better known as Abu Omar - and to his wife Nabila Ghali.

The abuses included violating the ban on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, the right to liberty, the respect for private and family life and the right to an effective remedy, the court ruled.

The court also condemned the Italian government for allowing agents involved in the kidnapping to escape with "impunity" and the quashing by Italy's top criminal court of the convictions of five Italian military intelligence agents on state secrecy grounds.

"I never wanted to take legal action against Italy, a country that took me in and fed me, but the state secrecy imposed on my case [by four successive governments]forced me to do so," Nasr told AKI.

"I am very happy at the European Court of Human Rights sentence, even no previous ruling in my favour has been implemented," Nasr said.

Italy has denied involvement in Nasr's abduction and never pursued the extradition of 26 Americans including 22 CIA agents convicted in absentia over the case in 2009 by an Italian court, which ordered the US nationals to pay a million euros to Nasr and 500,000 euros to Ghali.

Nasr and his wife have so far received no compensation, the European Court of Human Rights said on Tuesday.

A Milan court in 2013 convicted Nasr in absentia and sentenced him to six years in jail for membership of a terrorist organisation. He had been granted political asylum by Italy in 2001.

Nasr was not charged with any crime by Egypt's authorities. He was released from prison in 2007 but cannot leave the country.