­Twenty-two CIA officers and one US Air Force officers were ordered to serve jail time in Italy for the illegal kidnapping of Egyptian terror suspect cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr from a Milan street in 2003. Nasr was transported to Egypt by the CIA as part of their extraordinary rendition program, where he was allegedly tortured for seven months.

The trial has been ongoing for three-and-a-half years, and the Americans charged have never been in Italian custody. Convicted in absentia, the Italian court ordered the Americans to serve prison sentences of seven to nine years.

The decision to uphold the guilty verdict by the Italian Court of Cassations on Wednesday marks the conclusion of the first trial anywhere in the world concerning the CIA’s controversial rendition program under President George W. Bush, under which terror suspects were abducted and flown to countries around the world where torture was allowed.’