Nasr and Ghali v. Italy

Osama Nasr (plaintiff) was an Egyptian citizen who lived in Milan, Italy, with his wife, Nabila Ghali (plaintiff). Nasr had been granted asylum as a political refugee by the Italian government (defendant) because Nasr was a member of an Islamist group that the Egyptian government considered to be terrorist. In 2003, agents from the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) kidnapped Nasr and transferred Nasr to Egypt. The CIA agents acted with the Italian government’s knowledge and Italian agents’ cooperation. Nasr’s kidnapping was a so-called “extraordinary rendition”—a practice used by the United States after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to detain suspected terrorists and transfer them to black sites in countries where the detainees could be interrogated using torture and other tactics that were not allowed in the United States. Following the kidnapping, Nasr was detained and tortured in Egypt for more than a year. After Nasr’s release in 2004, an action was brought in Italian court to prosecute the parties responsible for the kidnapping and detention. However, because the court excluded evidence related to the kidnapping as covered by state-secret protection, the Italian agents involved in the kidnapping could not be convicted. Additionally, because the Italian government never requested the extradition of the American CIA agents, convictions of those agents could not be executed. Nasr and Ghali subsequently brought an action against the Italian government in the European Court of Human Rights. Among other things, Nasr and Ghali asserted a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the convention), which protects against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.