Robert Seldon Lady

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Robert Seldon Lady (b. February 2, 1954 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras; nicknamed "Mister Bob") is a noted member of the U.S. intelligence community. The former CIA station chief in Milan, Italy, Lady is now is a fugitive from Italian police, following his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in February 2003, in what the Italian press are referring to as the Imam Rapito (or "kidnapped imam") affair.

1 Background
2 The Imam Rapito affair
- 2.1 2007 indictment
3 The Mitrokhin Affair
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Background

Lady grew up in Honduras and became a New York City police officer in the 1970s.^{[citation needed]}

In the early-1980s, he joined the CIA, and later in the decade, Lady ran the Contra-support operations from the Honduran military base at Ojo de Agua, 30 miles northwest of Tegucigalpa.^{[citation needed]} He continued to work in Central America until his transfer to Milan in 2001.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] The Imam Rapito affair

Italian authorities believe that in 2003, Lady and a team of CIA agents kidnapped Nasr as he walked to his mosque in Milan for noon prayers. Lady is said to have accompanied Nasr to Egypt where he was interrogated and tortured.

Lady initially claimed diplomatic immunity in an effort to avoid judicial proceedings against him in Italy, but in November 2005 an Italian judge rejected this request, stating that Lady had forfeited his immunity when he retired from the CIA, and also that the alleged abduction was in any case a crime serious enough to disqualify him from immunity.^[1]

Lady, and his wife Martha, retired to northern Italy, near Asti, in September 2003. When the Italian police raided his home in June 2005, Lady was not there. Since that time there are reports that he is living in the Honduras or the United States.^[2]

His son, Robert S. Lady Jr, has followed his father in supporting war. He is a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force stationed at the Phoenix Base in Baghdad.

[edit] 2007 indictment

In January 2007, an Italian court ordered Lady's home in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy seized to cover court costs.^[3]

On February 16, 2007 an arrest warrant was issued for Mr. Lady for the kidnapping of Abu Omar. An Italian prosecutor, Armando Spataro, in Milan is trying the case. It is scheduled to begin June, 2007. As Lady's Italian lawyer, Daria Pesce, withdrew from the case shortly after the beginning of legal proceedings^[4], saying her client refuses to cooperate with the court proceedings because he believes the matter should be settled through a political, rather than legal solution,^[5] it is likely that Lady will be tried in absentia.

[edit] The Mitrokhin Affair

Further information: Italian Mitrokhin Commission

Investigations carried out by Rome prosecutor Pietro Salvitti, concerning Mario Scaramella who has been charged of defamation against Prime minister Romano Prodi, as well as his staff, in the Mitrokhin Commission affair, show that the network informing senator Paolo Guzzanti, in charge of the Mitrokhin Commission, included Nicolò Pollari, head of SISMI and Marco Mancini, n°2 of SISMI, both indicted for the Imam Rapito affair. This "network", according to Pietro Salvitti's words, also targetted General Giuseppe Cucchi (current director of the Cesis), Milan's judges Armando Spataro, in charge of the Imam Rapito case, and Guido Salvini, as well as La Reppublica reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo, who broke the Yellowcake forgery affair ^[6]. But they also showed connections between Mario Scaramella and the CIA, in particular through Filippo Marino, one of Scaramella's closest partners since the 1990s and co-founder Scarmella's Environmental Crime Prevention Program organization, who lives today in the US. Marino has acknowledged in an interview an association with former and active CIA officers, including Robert Seldon Lady ^[7].