Late 2005 or After: CIA Officer Involved in ‘Italian Job’ Rendition Declines Deal to Testify against Agency

Armando Spataro, the Italian prosecutor investigating the CIA’s rendition from Italy of Islamist extremist Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar—see Noon February 17, 2003), offers a deal to Robert Seldon Lady, one of the agency officers involved in the operation. Spataro wants Lady to testify against the CIA for the prosecution. In return, Lady will not be sentenced to prison in Italy, and half of a villa he owns there will not be confiscated. However, Lady declines the offer, later saying that doing so would cause him to “lose respect for 24 years of my life”—the length of time he worked for the CIA. [GQ, 3/2007 ]