It is highly unlikely the 26 American citizens will ever materially stand trial with the possible exception of Robert Lady Seldon. Robert Lady presented a defense memorial through his lawyer following his arrest warrant. To my knowledge, no CIA agent has ever done so.
Procedure is that the Minister of Justice must inform American authorities of the arrest warrants issued against their citizens and request they be turned over according to treaty. The previous Minister of Justice refused to countersign the previous request and the present Minister of Justice has declared that he will also refuse to countersign. This formal act towards a foreign state- or rather it's refusal to follow through by the government in this case- will complicate procedure but not prevent alternative solutions.
By law a person cannot be tried in absentia unless national interests or sovereignty have been violated (or if the person relinquishes his right to be present during his trial, which is more common than one suspects). This interpretation has been successfully applied in the recent case against Mario Lozano accused of first degree murder of Nicola Calipari and attempted murder of Giuliana Sgrena and the other SISMi agent.
It is most likely that the 26 agents will be tried in absentia because of the grave violation of Italian national interests. The Italian accomplices will of course stand trial.
Whatever, the 26 agents risk arrest if they set foot in Europe without diplomatic immunity or in any nation that has extradition conventions with the European Community.
Still, why is the present Minister of Justice against countersigning? Isn't he a Prodi ally?
He is proof that Berlusconi's electoral law was designed to make Italy ungovernable for this legislature. The government cannot hold together without his presence in the coalition. This gives him a great deal of freedom to take personal initiatives or to procrastinate on collective initiatives that are part of the coalition platform.
One point of the program was to block the so-called reform of the judiciary branch passed by the Berlusconi governmnet. He procrastinated with the result that this disastrous law went into effect.
He is presently riding a demagogic Cathlic-rightwing position to grant amnesty for a large number of crimes. It is feared this amnesty would include another blanket pardon for the white collar crimes committed by the Berlusconi entourage. Whereas Berlusconi hesitated to resort to an amnesty that would have included his own, Mastella doesn't.
The Minister of Infrastructures, Antonio Di Pietro, has declared that he will pull out of the government if the amnesty includes white collar crime.
Another battle cry of the rightwing is to pass a law severely punishing leaks to the press of investigative transcripts and wire-taps. This is demagogic in that there are already laws on the books. However the proposed law would put the responsability on the shoulders of the ownership of papers, creating the conditions of preventive censorship. This law had already been proposed by the Berlusconi government but never got to the floor.
Whose platform is Mastella enacting, the Prodi coalition's program or Berlusconi's?
