Italy's got balls

And you gotta lovem for it!

An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents for allegedly helping deport an imam to Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts, an Italian official familiar with the investigation said Friday. The agents are suspected in the seizure of an Egyptian-born imam identified as Abu Omar on the streets of Milan in February 2003, according to the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. The U.S. Embassy in Rome declined to comment.

Prosecutors believe the agents seized Omar as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, according to reports Friday in newspapers Corriere della Sera and Il Giorno.

A judge also has issued a separate arrest warrant for Omar, news agencies ANSA and Apcom said. In that warrant, Judge Guido Salvini claimed the seizure of Omar represented a violation of Italian sovereignty, Apcom reported.

What exactly is "extraordinary rendition"? It is a program devised as a means of extraditing terrorism suspects from one foreign state to another for interrogation and prosecution. The unstated purpose of such renditions is to subject the suspects to aggressive methods of persuasion that are illegal in America, Europe, and most of the civilized world—including torture.