Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi yesterday demanded the US show full respect for Italian sovereignty after summoning the US ambassador over an alleged CIA abduction of an Islamic cleric in Milan. "The prime minister demanded full respect for Italian sovereignty from the US," said a statement issued by the prime minister's office after an hour-long meeting.

Washington's top envoy here, Mel Sembler, was called to clarify the affair of an Egyptian Islamic cleric allegedly seized by the CIA in a Milan street in 2003 and missing since.

He promised to show absolute respect for Italian sovereignty. "Ambassador Sembler, in the name of his government, repeated that the respect was full and total, and that it would remain so in the future," the statement said.

Osama Mustafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, was reportedly seized in a Milan street on February 17, 2003 by two Italian-speakers claiming to want to check his identity. He has been missing ever since.

The incident made the news last week when the Corriere della Sera daily reported that a judge had issued arrest warrants for 13 agents of the CIA.

They were accused of abducting Hassan and taking him to the US military base at Aviano in northern Italy before transferring him to Egypt, where his entourage claim he was tortured during interrogation.

Corriere della Sera said that even if Rome did not know about the abduction "it would be strange that the government had not asked the secret service for a report on such an embarrassing affair".

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