On February 23, 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled (judgment only available in French) that that the CIA’s abduction and extrajudicial transfer to Egypt of imam Abu Omar violated the European Convention on Human Rights. According to the press release, the case concerned the extrajudicial transfer of Egyptian imam Abu Omar, from Italy to Egypt, effected by CIA agents with the cooperation of Italian authorities. Omar, who had been under investigation for ties to radical Islamist groups in Italy, was detained in secrecy for several months and stated he was interrogated and tortured at regular intervals. According to a news report, Italian courts convicted twenty-six Americans in absentia in the case, but Italy’s justice ministry never pursued their extradition. Italy’s highest court quashed the convictions of five Italian military agents on grounds of “state secrecy.” The Court ruled that Italy had violated Article 3 of the Convention, because “the executive’s decision to apply State secrecy to information” that had been widely publicized in the media “had clearly been applied in order to ensure that those responsible did not have to answer for their actions.” Regarding the U.S. agents, the Court determined that the Italian government had never sought their extradition, and had pardoned three of the convicted persons. The Court further ruled that Italy’s cooperation with the U.S. “extraordinary rendition” operation exposed Abu Omar “to a serious and foreseeable risk of ill-treatment and of conditions of detention contrary to Article 3 of the Convention,” and noted that under the Convention “Italian authorities had . . . a duty to take the appropriate measures to ensure that the persons within their jurisdiction were not subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The Court further agreed with the Italian lower court’s findings that Omar “had been subjected from the outset to unacknowledged detention in complete disregard of the guarantees enshrined in Article 5 of the Convention,” and ruled that Italy was responsible for his “abduction and to the entire period of detention following his handover to the US authorities.”