TWO senior officials of the Italian military intelligence agency were arrested yesterday for allegedly helping the CIA to kidnap a terrorism suspect on a street in Milan three years ago.

A judge also issued arrest warrants for four Americans involved in the abduction.

The arrest of Marco Mancini, deputy head of the military intelligence agency, and retired General Gustavo Pignero marked the first time that Italian officials had been linked to the abduction of a radical imam known as Abu Omar.

Armando Spataro, the prosecutor, has already issued arrest warrants for 22 CIA agents said to be implicated in the abduction. Of the four additional Americans being sought, three were alleged CIA agents and the fourth worked at the US military air base in Aviano, in northern Italy, where Abu Omar was taken after being seized on a Milan street.

Abu Omar, whose real name is Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, claims that he was flown to Egypt from Aviano and tortured there under questioning.

Italian investigators do not question that Abu Omar was suspected of involvement in terrorism. They say their own surveillance of him — including wiretapped phone calls — led them to believe that he had ties to al-Qaeda and was recruiting insurgents for Iraq. They complain however that the alleged CIA abduction cut across their own investigations and was a violation of Italian sovereignty.

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